


Chance Encounters

by Rain Seaker (m00se)



Series: Chance Encounters [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-01-24 09:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1600421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m00se/pseuds/Rain%20Seaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry meets the members of the Avengers at different times throughout his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Runaway Bob's Wacky Adventure Land

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/get money from Marvel's The Avengers or J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. I just like playing in their sand boxes.

The standard size combat suit that the kid was wearing sagged off his body. The bottom of the pants was rolled up to the ankles of the short soldier. This told him that the outfit was borrowed. That didn't make him feel much better, but at least it wasn't his government that was training kid soldiers again. His black hair looked like a crow's nest and Clint was just close enough to see the sadness in his too green eyes. It was the age he saw there that drew Clint to the boy. He knew that look intimately. The kid had the eyes of a soldier who had gone to hell and hadn't quite made it back. His eyes were centuries older than his body and if Clint didn't know better he would have thought he was staring through a window to the past.

The kid was standing next to Coulson and two unknowns. The tall black man next to him stood like a policeman, but was scanning the area around like a paranoid bodyguard. If anything the other unknown man looked even more dangerous, but mostly because if the kid had the eyes of someone who had been put through a meat grinder than the man had the body. The scars went from looking years old to just scabbed over and most were deep. Clint had rarely seen someone so scared. Often times it was POWs that had the scars like this, but this man's scars were too varied in age to give a good impression on Clint. It didn't help that Clint couldn't quite place an age on him. The man could have been anywhere from thirty's to sixty's.

Though it was the way that the scarred man's hand rested on the boy's shoulder that made Clint want to put an arrow through his eye.

It was a tactic that Clint had seen many times before, and it had even been tried on him once. The handlers would act as guardians and even parental figures to the subject, causing an instinctive loyalty and family bond. This would cause the subject to see his duty more like a family obligation and be less inclined to betray the family later on.

It made Clint sick. The government was tricking kids into loving people who only saw them as the job - as expendable tools.

It was a minute later that Coulson waved him over. Coulson apparently thought he had spent enough time observing the new comers to get a good first impression.

"Hawkeye, I would like to introduce you to our tagalongs for this mission. They are joining us from across the pond. The British government has asked for our help with a little training." Clint could almost hear the grimace in his voice. Coulson turned back to the three unknowns. "This is Hawkeye, our resident sniper and lookout."

The black bodyguard started sizing him up. Clint watched his eyes trace over his shorter body, cataloging it. From the slight relax in posture Clint got the impression that the bodyguard thought he would be able to take Clint. He was wrong, but Clint knew better than to correct that misconception. People assumed that just because his specialty was long distance it meant that he wasn't as good at close quarter combat. If it came to it they would quickly find out just how wrong they were.

The scarred man looked far more welcoming. He even smiled a little and held out his hand for a shake. Clint didn't take him up on it. The hand soon retreated.

The kid was the only one who looked uninterested. His eyes were scanning the surrounding area, in a similar manner to his bodyguard, having only spent a moment categorizing Clint and moving on. Clint was starting to get more and more flash backs to his younger self.

"This is Wolf," Coulson pointed to the scarred man, "King," the black bodyguard, "and Bolt." He nodded to the uninterested teen. As the kid pushed his hand through his hair Clint got a glimpse of how he got his name and wanted to shot something something again - preferably his two handlers. "This will be a closed mission, which means codenames only. I am Lynchpin." The teen looked a little interested in that, but seemed to be zoning out a little. Clint saw him rub the scar more than once.

"I'll take Bolt with me." Hawkeye quickly stated. Coulson looked a little surprised at that, but nodded. The kids handlers looked a little put out, but seemed to accept it quickly after the look he gave them. In fact, the only person who disagreed was the kid.

"I don't think that's the best idea." Bolt looked at him again.

"From your body type and posture I'd say you are a close combat fighter. That's fine. However, that is not all you need to know if you want to succeed. Your handlers and instructors have probably emphasized that to the detriment of other skills. You can learn from me if you give it a shot." Clint turned around and headed to the helicopter standing by. "You coming?"

A few seconds later the kid followed him, seemingly after getting approval from his handlers.

"You ever ride in a helicopter before?" Clint asked while hopping in and nodding to the pilot. The kid shook his head, but hopped in after Clint anyway. "First rule: Don't fall out. Dead bodies take paperwork and I already have way too much. Put these on." Clint handed the kid a pair of headphones. Putting on one himself soon after. "This will be a short flight. We will be landing on a rooftop close to the target from there we will roof jump until we are right next to it. We will arrive first. It is our job if get a lay of the land. Spot lookouts and guards. We are the eyes on this mission which means we have one of the most important jobs. If we screw up and miss something then our teammates could walk into a trap." Hawkeye waved at pilot who started the helicopter and took off.

Bolt didn't look nervous at all and Clint could see he even relaxed a little once the wind started flowing through the air. Clint could understand that feeling - he had always felt more at home in the air than on the ground.

It only took about five minutes to reach the target rooftop.

Clint took off the headphones and jumped out, bracing his legs. He turned turned back to the helicopter and to direct Bolt on the correct way to do it without injury only to find that the younger boy was already standing behind him - ready. He flipped on his comm-pack and nodded to Bolt to do the same. The kid flipped the switch on his suit and followed Hawkeye.

Clint moved to the edge of the roof, but paused before he jumped. He looked at the width between the building and back to Bolt. The boy's legs could be a determent in this part of the mission. They had scouted beforehand so Clint knew the exact route to take. However, the route had been based on his specific abilities, there was no telling if Bolt would be able to pull off all the jumps. Clint mentally shrugged off the worry, Bolt was a fully trained operative, he should be able to take care of himself.

"Keep up." Clint started running and didn't slow down. He gave a short hesitation after the first jump to make sure he made it before continuing on. The kid could either keep up or not. Clint would have preferred the latter, the less people he had to keep track of the better and he always tended to be distracted with kids on the field. The route he was taking was rough, but mostly straight. The kid was following him easily. Clint didn't expect any different, but he had hoped.

"So, been doing this long?" Bolt asked quietly.

"Yes." Clint jumped over a balcony fence and started climbing a fire escape. It was quiet a little longer before the kid spoke again.

"I know that look in your eyes. The urge to protect me, to keep me safe off of the battlefield. You're thinking that I'm not trained enough to be on the mission and that I'm just a little kid that is in over his head. You shouldn't and I'm not."

Clint sighed a little. It was almost like a miniature Hawkeye was behind him.

"Kid, you don't have a clue what I'm thinking. You should be focusing on the mission and not worrying about me. Think about the job and only the job. We'll all be better off." Clint paused his running for a second on warmed up a little, the last jump was the biggest. "Don't fall." Clint took a running leap and slid to a stop on the next rooftop.

He immediately turned around and nodded to the kid. He watched with baited breath as the kid took in the jump and hyped himself up. This was the largest jump of the entire route, everything was downhill after this.

He couldn't help that his heart started beating a little faster when the kid jumped.

Clint couldn't stop the skip that happened.

Clint immediately ran and slid to the edge of the rooftop.

The kid's jump was too short. There was no way that he would make it to the edge of the building.

His heart was almost in his throat as he threw out his arm and tried to grab onto the kid. He calculated the trajectory of the boy quickly in his head. His heart fell. The kid wouldn't even make it to his arm.

He turned his head a little - he didn't want to look.

The hand that grabbed his arm caused his head to swivel back to the boy in disbelief. His hand clutched it unconsciously and he was pulling the kid up before he knew what was going on. The burn of the muscles in his arm as he pulled the boy to him was the only thing that was keeping him grounded.

When his back hit the gravel of the roof and the kid's weight lay on top of him, he allowed himself a sigh of relief. Bolt shouldn't have been able to make his hand, but Clint wasn't complaining.

"You okay kid?"

"Y-yeah. I-I think s-s-so." The kid jumped up quickly and shook off. "My name's Bolt."

"I just saved your life, I can call you whatever I want." Clint pushed himself to his feet and forced his heart's beating back into it's normal rhythm "You're lucky this is our stop." Clint crouched, pulled Bolt down, and walked to the edge of the rooftop.

The target of the mission was a rather boring looking warehouse in the middle of a bunch of boring warehouses. Which wasn't great for scenery, but made for a good inconspicuous hiding place for illegal activities. Clint had seen many like it in his time. Clint grabbed a pair of binoculars from his bag and handed them to Bolt. He hadn't needed them in awhile, but it was always good to come prepared.

"Start from the left side and go around. The building is large enough for a 15 minute route, which means we will be looking for 20 to make sure that we haven't missed any guards. There are scouts on three other roofs surrounding the building. We will call out the ones we spot over the comms. The scouts have their own closed circuit comm. At the end of the 20 minutes I will give the final count to Lynchpin as well as all the placements. He will tell us who to take out and when. After that, the infiltration team will head in. It is our job to provide backup and spot incoming hostiles. If you see something important you either tell me or you shout it over the comm. If you have only seconds to give a warning, don't tell me, tell the people that are going to get shot. This job is all about responsibility. You up for it?" Clint asked with a hard look in his eye. He couldn't afford for any weak links on this team. There was a reason he worked better alone than with a group, the responsibility got to him. However, Clint was sometimes more use to S.H.I.E.L.D as a scout than a spy.

"I can do it." Bolt said with youthful arrogance. Clint shook his head, but turned back to the target. He would look out for the kid, but the mission needed his full attention.

* * *

Harry panted as he leaned against the short wall of the rooftop.

He tried not to look at the body bags that the cleanup crew were zipping up a few feet away from him. Harry tried not to think about just how much the mission had gone to hell and how much he misjudged the man who saved his life more than once that night. A shadow fell over him and a pair of legs blocked his view of the body bags.

"You alive down there kid?" Hawkeye rested his head on the tip of a large bow that he was carrying.

Harry remembered how he had scoffed at the weapon when Hawkeye had pulled it out and started giggling. That weapon had saved his life at least three times that night and he had dismissed it as a medieval toy. From the way that Hawkeye was staring at him Harry must have let a few manic giggles escape him, yet he couldn't find it in himself to care. He was too tired.

"Come on kid, up you get." Hawkeye held out a hand for Harry to grab and pulled him up.

"Sorry, Hawkeye." Harry said as he stared at the six body bags on the rooftop. "I didn't do my job."

"The mission is over kid. You can call me Clint, Clint Barton." He didn't hold out his hand for an introduction, which made sense because once you saved the life of somebody and they saved yours it didn't really matter what your names were. Clint pushed on Harry's shoulders and turned his head away from the body bags. "And you did just fine, kid."

"I didn't. I could have been better. People got hurt and I..."

"Let me just stop you right there kid. People will always get hurt. Even if everyone does their job perfect people can still get hurt. Seeing as no one on our side died because you missed something, call it a good night and forget about it." Clint pushed Harry to the ladder to start climbing down.

"There were people though...they snuck up behind us and you were doing your job so well and I just...I missed..." Harry listlessly looked at the night skyline of the American city that he had been in for a total of five hours and had already killed someone in. Harry turned away from the depressing thought and climbed down.

"Kid, what is your specialty?"

"Close quarter combat."

"How many times have you played scout on a mission?"

"Just this once."

"So why on Earth do you suddenly think you're an expert at it. I've been doing this job for more than a decade and I still miss things. Stop feeling guilty and start enjoying yourself. So what the mission went FUBAR, that's what mission's tend to do and seeing as no one good died put this is the victory pile and move on."

Harry rubbed his eyes a little and jumped the remaining distance to the ground of the alley. Hawkeye quickly followed him.

"You saved my life tonight." Harry said a little out of it.

"Well, not to brag or anything, but that's kind of my job description." Hawkeye started pushing his shoulders again.

Harry rubbed his eyes again. Watching the battle had been a little like trying to find an exploding snitch in a pile of exploding snitches. There were too many things to look at and Harry didn't know how Hawkeye managed to know exactly who to hit and he never once missed.

"I'm sorry I didn't see those guys quicker." Harry said his mind still on the body bags that littered the roof.

"Bolt, you have to remember that I would have been on that rooftop alone if you hadn't been there and most likely would have been in much worse condition." Hawkeye pulled his sleeve a little and Harry suddenly realized that they weren't going back to the target or headquarters.

"Where are we going?"

"You seem like you could use a little break and I am going to give it to you. Don't worry about it." Hawkeye turned another corner and Harry followed him. They were about halfway down the street when Hawkeye turned to the side of a building and pressed on a keypad beside the door. Harry barely had a second to think before he was pushed through the open door into a rather spacious hallway and then pushed through another door that Hawkeye opened at the end.

"What is this place?" Harry asked.

"Oh, well. I have little nests like this stationed throughout the city. You never know when you need a safe place to crash." He rummaged around in a drawer and Harry could see him pulling out some clothes. "Here this should fit." Harry grabbed onto the pants and jumper that he was given. "I know it is a little old, but it should be warm enough and pretty comfortable. I can't stand to stay in mission gear after..." Hawkeye trailed off, but Harry understood. "You can use the bathroom, but then we are going out."

"You have something in mind?" Harry asked confused.

"Oh yeah, the perfect place for snot-nosed brats like you." Hawkeye poked him in the side.

"You are very different than how you were during the mission, Hawkeye."

"I told you, the mission is over I am not Hawkeye anymore, I am Clint Barton. Hawkeye is made of serious things. Hawkeye has the lives of men hanging on his ability to do his job. Hawkeye kills people for a living. Clint is not Hawkeye. Clint likes fast cars and easy women. Clint likes classical music and art galleries. Clint worries about paying the bills on time. What about you,  _Bolt?_ " Clint said while pulling off his shirt.

"Harry. My name is Harry - _just_  Harry." Harry said softly and then rushed into the bathroom for a quick shower and change.

It was almost 15 minutes later when he came out fully dressed with wet hair.

"There you are. Let's go." Clint grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room and down the hall to a staircase. Harry was dragged through another door into a car park and then lead down the row to a black Mercedes. "Jump in." Clint sat down in the driver's chair and adjusted the seat a little.

"Where are we going again?" Harry asked while sitting down.

"Someplace that every kid needs to go to." Clint pulled out of the parking lot and sped off down the road. Harry would have been a little worried at the speed if he hadn't just watched Clint kill a couple dozen men.

"I'm not a kid." Harry said as he stared at the lights flashing by.

"Yeah well, it's a place that adults need to go to every once in a while too." Clint sped up a little. Harry remained quiet for the rest of the trip.

The lights of the city flashed by the window. Harry could make out some of the street names and landmarks. He couldn't stop his mind from memorizing them just in case he needed to go back the way he came without Clint's help.

Harry forced himself away from the window to look at his companion. The agent from the mission seemed almost invisible beneath the personality of the man.

As the minutes passed by he could see the tension draining from the other man's body and allowed his to do the same. He could do with some relaxing after the week that he had.

Harry closed his eyes and rested his head against the window - adrenaline draining from his body.

"We're here." The words and the abrupt stop caused Harry to flinch awake.

Runaway Bob's Wacky Adventure Land was not the place that Harry expected Clint to pull into. The building had a giant, colorful sign on it that was turned off. This indicated to Harry that it might be closed, but Clint didn't seem to care. Clint got out of the car and waved for Harry to follow.

"What is this place?" Harry asked while Clint walked up to the fenced in miniature golfing area.

"It's like a Chucky Cheese or whatever the British equivalent of that is. You know, an arcade with carnival games, bumper cars and stuff. It's tons of fun. Come on." Clint grabbed the edge of the fence and pulled himself over. Harry looked on, shocked.

"Are you breaking into a miniature golf park?" Harry was baffled.

"Yes,  _we_  are. Now get over here, or will I have to drag you?" The look in his eyes made Harry think that he wasn't exaggerating so Harry quickly grabbed the side of the fence and jumped over.

"What are we doing here?"

"I have found in my many years of service that the best cure to a mission gone wrong is a little bit of harmless fun. Of course, when harmless isn't possible than harmful can do, but I think you a little young for that yet." Clint walked to the side of the building and pulled out a set of lock picks.

"I'm not a kid." Harry said indignantly. He hadn't been a kid in a very long while. Clint looked back at him for a second before continuing to pick the lock.

"Maybe not, but you do look like the sort of person who needs to learn to enjoy the little things." Clint smiled as the door lock gave a click and swung open. He seemed to fumble around inside for a few seconds before the light went on and his hand appeared to pull Harry inside.

Harry paused for a second as the lights washed over him. Flashing lights lit up a hundred different machine all making noises and moving - he forced his adrenaline rush away again.

"I've never seen anything like this before." Harry was so caught up in amazement that he didn't notice the dark look the crossed Hawkeye's face. "My cousin had a birthday party at one of these places before, but I didn't get to go." Harry turned back to Clint. His eyes were lit up and for once Harry was looking the exact age he was. "Can I?"

"Of course. Run wild." Clint leaned against the wall as Harry sped through the machines. Harry stopped in front of several before coming to a set of short lanes with balls and circles at the end of the lanes.

"What exactly _is_ skee ball?"

It was almost an hour later that found Harry and Clint at the fake shooting gallery having a competition. Harry was losing. The game let out a loud dinging noise and Clint did a victory dance.

"This isn't fair, your job is marksmanship."

"You're just a sore loser." Clint said while jumping over the counter to grab a large stuffed elephant from the wall. "I think I'll just take this, but since I'm such a good sport I think I'll let you have it." Clint grinned for a second and threw the elephant at Harry. "There we go. The night is now complete, you have been pummeled with a stuffed animal. Much better than anything your handlers could do." Clint said leaning against the counter. Harry looked at him surprised.

"You mentioned that earlier, what are you talking about? What handlers?" Harry was surprised when Clint's face got serious all of a sudden.

"Wolf and King, they are your handler's aren't they?"

"What? No. I mean, not really...okay...sort of, but it's not what you think." Harry pushed the elephant to the side and stood up.

"Really? So what am I missing?" Clint asked leaning his chin on his hand. Harry blushed a little. He had never thought of Remus and Kingsley as handlers, over protective bodyguards, sure, but not handlers.

"It's not what you think. There are circumstances that you can't understand. They don't want me to learn this stuff, it's just...there isn't much of a choice." Harry said looking down a little. Voldemort had made sure of that.

"Oh? Let me give you a piece of ancient advice." Clint jumped over the counter and pushed up Harry's chin so he was looking at him. "There will always be wars. And because there are always wars, there are always going to be soldiers. For as long as there are soldiers there are going to be people trying to make a bigger and better soldier. And.." Clint paused and looked Harry straight in the eye. "There is always a choice." Clint bent and picked up the elephant from the floor then gave it to Harry. "To remember."

"Remember what?" Harry asked confused, but Clint had already turned away. He grabbed something out of his pocket that Harry couldn't see and started to turn off the lights in the room.

"Come on, I best get you back before we start an international incident." Clint pushed Harry out the front door of the building and Harry got a glimpse of what he held in his hand. Clint pushed the key into the door lock and turned.

"Wait. You had the key this whole time?" Harry looked at him surprised. "That means... Do you own this store?" Harry asked shocked.

Clint nodded at Harry and started pushing him back to the car.

"So why did we break in? Why do you own that place at all? It's not exactly the store I would picture you owning." Harry said while getting in slowly. He wasn't all that excited to go back.

"To help me remember." Clint said.

"Remember what?"

"To enjoy the little things. To remember that sometimes it's okay not to have the world on your shoulders. Sometimes it's okay to just be a kid."


	2. Machu Picchu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/get money from Marvel's The Avengers or J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. I just like to play in their sandboxes.

Staying away from other people was a great idea, in theory, not so much in practice. There were two components to its failure. The first of which was that a man can only eat so many nuts and berries before he is willing to rip his own eyes out just to have a burger. You really don't realize just how much a pain in the ass it is to gather food until you have to do it to survive.

The second of which is the very obvious fact that people are everywhere. They don't say that space is the final frontier for nothing. Bruce could be 200 miles away from the nearest city and he would still run into a McDonalds built out of sticks and mud. He tried his hardest to stay away from large groups at least, but it was almost impossible to completely disconnect from civilization. Besides the fact that there were rather large groups of people constantly looking for him.

So, while his hypothesis was sound his experiment was a failure.

This is what found Bruce at a train station in the southern part of Peru. His last  _incident_  had been too conspicuous to allow him to remain in Colombia and had sent him on trek south. He had been traveling for a couple of days before he had reached the train station he was currently at. This hadn't left him with much time for personal hygiene, being on the run rarely did.

Bruce stumbled, but kept from falling over when someone bumped into him from behind. His heart sped up and he had to swallow down unnecessary fear as he turned suddenly.

"Oh dear, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there." The boy's British accent took him by surprise, but only slightly, there were tourists everywhere. To Bruce's relief the young man that had run into him didn't look like much of a threat.

"It's fine." Bruce took a couple of deep breaths to calm down his instinctive reaction to surprises and after a year on the run the other guy was more than instinctive, much to his disappointment. He nodded quickly to the boy and started pushing his way through the crowd away from the tourist.

"Hey wait up a second." The distinctive British accent seemed to be following him through the crowd. Bruce didn't want to stop, but ignoring the man completely would draw too much attention. He stopped moving and spun back around to the boy following him.

"What?" He asked gruffly. It had been awhile since he had been part of a normal conversation.

"Oh, sorry. I can just..." The man was taken aback by his rough tone.

"What do you want?" Bruce asked impatiently.

"I was just wondering if you knew which train would take me closest to Machu Picchu. This is supposed to be a well deserved vacation and I happened to get on the wrong train somewhere. I ended up here without meaning to and I don't think this is the right place because I can't even find it on a map. I have been walking around this station for awhile completely clueless. I have had a bloody hard time trying to find someone who speaks English. So if you could help I would be really thankful." The young man asked sheepishly.

Bruce must have looked more rough than he thought. It wasn't often that he was mistaken for a local. Bruce took another look at the lost look on the boy's face and only felt pity for him. Bruce sighed, if this turned out to be a ploy of some sort he was really going to hit himself later.

"It's this one." Bruce pointed to the train next to them. His current destination. "It leaves in about fifteen minutes and it will take you to a train station that has a connecting path to Machu Picchu." The boy looked slightly surprised at the answer. Bruce kicked himself as he pulled out an old map from his travel worn pack. "This is an English map of the surrounding area. You can usually find them in tourist spots or more populated areas." Which is why getting this one had been such a pain in the ass. He just grimace and pushed the faded and stained map into the boy's hands. That particular map showed the rail lines in Peru and the stations. It had been more than helpful on this segment of his journey, but chances were he wasn't going to be in this country much longer so it wasn't much of a sacrifice. "You had best get a ticket if you want out of here."

"Great! Thanks. I'll just..." The boy and Bruce turned to the ticket booth just in time to see one of the employees change the availability of the train in question to 'Sold Out'. "...Um, that's okay. I'll just wait for the next train. It's fine." He gave a quick smile to Bruce and with a small slump to his shoulders started to wander off still clutching the worn out map in his hand.

The internal argument in Bruce's mind was quick and brutal.

"Wait for a second." Bruce caught up to the young man. "The next train going in that direction is tomorrow. However, I happened to buy a whole compartment to myself so I guess you can travel with me. If you'd like." Bruce looked in to the boy's green eyes searchingly. He would be in trouble if this happened to be a trap, but there was something in his eyes that made Bruce want to trust him, he kicked himself mentally again. This was it, no more good Samaritan acts, but when the boy's eyes lit up Bruce couldn't help feel good about it. It wasn't often he could help people out nowadays, but it always made him feel better when he good.

"That would be great. I can pay you back." The boy reached into his bag and pulled out a wad of cash that had Bruce's eyes widening in surprise and his hands quickly reaching out to push it away.

"Are you crazy? Don't go flashing that kind of cash around here. It's like you are trying to get mugged." Bruce looked around to see if anyone had gotten a look at the cash and relaxed a little after he didn't see any too interested faces. The last thing he wanted was fisticuffs in the middle of a packed train station. The other guy didn't think much of wannabe muggers.

"Oh. I just didn't..." The boy blushed again and put away most of the wad. The rest of it he passed into Bruce's hands. It was more than the ticket price. Bruce wanted to protest, but he did need the money. He gave another sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. This day was getting to be too stressful on him and the other guy. The last thing he wanted was to spend a couple of hours in a cramped metal tube on thin pieces of metal going at ludicrous speeds, but he needed to travel fast and the other guy had already nixed the idea of planes. "I guess I should introduce myself. I am Harry Evans." The boy held out a hand that Bruce took.

"Bruce Green." His current alias. "We better board."

"Right, of course. Lead the way."

Bruce headed onto the train with Harry following. The train hallway was small and Bruce had to let out several deep breaths before they reached their compartment. Bruce entered and opened the window taking in deep breaths of fresh air.

"A little claustrophobic?" Bruce started. He had forgotten that there was someone following him.

"Yes. It's a recent development. I'm still trying to get a hang of it." Bruce said truthfully as he sat on one of the benches. Harry claimed the other.

"Ah. I remember getting over mine. I was 11 and I had just started a new school. I got a new bedroom and suddenly became afraid of getting stuck in small dark places. It took me awhile, but I got over it. What caused yours?"

"Well, an experiment gone wrong I guess. Sometimes I just get the feeling that everything is getting smaller. That I will be trapped, stuck in this place where I am too big and everything else is too small, too fragile." Bruce said while looking out the window. The train started moving. He didn't think he would ever get sick of the forest.

"I can understand that." Harry said while nodding. "For me it was the lack of freedom. To have all this space and then have it taken away from you. It was nightmare inducing. Luckily, I made a couple of good friends at my new school and they helped me overcome it."

"What helped?" Bruce asked.

"Well, I guess several things. The most important to me was imagining I was somewhere else. I had this place in my mind where I was totally relaxed. For me it was imagining that I was flying. The wind rushing through my hair. Nothing but sky around me and ground below me. It was a place where I was completely free of obligations and duty. A place to just be me." Harry had a glazed look in his eye that Bruce connected with day dreaming. He supposed that maybe for some people that could be a great dream, but all he could feel was the imaginary terror of falling to his death. He shuddered.

Though, seeing as Harry was still in his faraway place Bruce started to imagine a place like Harry had described. A place where he was completely at home, relaxed. The first thing that came to mind was his old laboratory. It didn't last five seconds before a giant green monster started destroying the walls. It had been his first home, a place where he belonged, but it hadn't been that in a long time. Ever since the other guy had come into his life he couldn't see labs as anything more than a trap.

As Harry was still looking rather out of it Bruce decided that now would be a good enough time to clean up. There were pretty well stocked bathrooms on this train and he needed a good shave. On his way there he still contemplated what he would be completely at home at. The cities were too loud and crowded for him now. Though really being away from people would be nice. Bruce got into one of the rickety shower stalls and turned on the water. He moaned at the first rush of hot water that he had felt in weeks.

It was then that he looked out of one of the small windows on the side of the train and saw the passing jungle. He could get used to that. A giant forest with no one around. No honking horns of cars in the distance. No crunching noises of twigs and leaves from passing animals. No squawking of birds nearby. No one that the other guy could possibly hurt. That would be perfect.

It was only when he found himself in front of a mirror shaving off the last of his beard that he came back to himself. Bruce could understand why Harry would go into that trace. It was hard to want to be in the real world when the dream was so perfect. He rubbed his nose again. Getting lost in his own mind wouldn't help anything. He had already tried meditation to little effect.

Bruce shook his head and started by to the compartment. The cramped space of the hallway affecting him less than before. It was only when he started getting closer that he heard voices coming from the compartment.

"Really, Hermione, I'm fine. You are just overreacting." Harry was talking to someone.

"No...not safe...Eaters still looking...hurt...back." Bruce couldn't quite hear the response that he got, but it sounded like it came from a woman.

"Look, Hermione. I love you, but I can't stay there. We all agreed that I could have this. After everything don't I get a vacation? Is it really too much to ask for? Just stop worrying so much." Harry seemed a little exasperated and Bruce allowed himself to relax. Harry wasn't part of the guys out to get him. He was just being paranoid. "I love you too, stay safe yourself." Bruce had apparently missed her final words.

Bruce waited a few moments before opening the door just quick enough to see Harry tucking something away. It kind of looked like a mirror, but it was tucked away too quickly for Bruce to be sure.

"I didn't think we have reception out here." Bruce said.

"My friend made me get the newest satellite phone so that she could reach me from anywhere. She has been a little over protective of me and I think this trip has been pushing her over the edge a little." Bruce and Harry settled down again. "See, her boyfriend died in one of the terrorist attacks that happened in Britain recently. They were going to get married and I think part of her just wilted after he died." Harry looked forlorn after he said this. "He was one of my best friends and I don't think we can be the same after... Well, I tried to get her to come with me on this trip, but she has always been obsessed with school so she decided to go back and finish once the attacks stopped."

Bruce looked at the slumped boy and leaned over to pat his shoulder. He had never been good at knowing reacting to sad people.

"I'm sorry."

"Nothing we can do about it now." Harry said bitterly. He looked down for a second before brightening when he saw something. "Hey do you know how to play chess." Bruce nodded slowly. He hadn't played in awhile, but he was always up for a game.

Harry smiled as he pulled a chess board from his bag and started setting it up between them.

"I haven't played since Ron died. He was the king at this game. He could beat anyone." Harry smiled at the board once it was set up. "White or black?"

"Black." Bruce said easily.

The rest of the trip went rather quickly. It was nice to fall into a game and not worry about the rest of the world. He had spent too much time in the jungle away from the world to be anything other than rusty, but Harry only won one game, the first they played. Though, Harry didn't seem too upset about losing. When Bruce asked him why Harry had responded that after seven years you got used to losing.

It wasn't until the train started pulling into the station and Harry started putting away his chessboard that Bruce got a bad feeling. It took him a while to recognize it, but he realized looking at the boarding area what the problem was.

The train station was empty.

"It was nice meeting you." Bruce said to Harry while standing up quickly.

He had to get out of there. His heart was already beating a little too fast. The other guy wanted to come out and Bruce couldn't be in a train full of people when that happened.

"Hey, where are you going the train hasn't stopped yet." Harry was out of the compartment behind him, but Bruce wasn't listening anymore. He had started to catch glimpses of black figures coming out from behind the pillars of the train station. How dare they try to attack him now? He had just gotten away from last time. He hadn't even had time to settle down again. Bruce shook his head a little. Hulk was trying to get out now and there wasn't much Bruce could do to stop that except get out the of the train.

The last thing Bruce heard was a rather frantic Harry yelling behind him, "WAIT! STOP! IT'S NOT SAFE, COME BACK!" The last thing he saw was one of the black figures with a white mask on his face sending a wave of green light in his direction.

That was as far as he got before the other guy took over.

* * *

Harry looked at the man lying on the hotel bed with a certain fascination. Certainly he had seen weird things happen when people interacted with magic, but he had never seen a reaction quite like that before. It wasn't often that Harry saw a giant green monster tear apart train station and Death Eaters alike. He had been lucky, if you could call it that, that Bruce had been there. He didn't know what would have happened with all of those Death Eaters if he hadn't.

Even the cleanup of the attack had been a huge pain to conduct. There weren't that many people to obliviate, but there was a lot of damage to fix and there were only so many people to help. Harry had done his part in the battle, but taking care of Bruce seemed like a better plan than fixing the train station. As Bruce started to groan Harry appeared at his side with a cup of water.

"Be careful. Don't sit up too fast. You took a few hits." Harry said while helping Bruce maneuver into a sitting position.

"W-What happened?" Bruce said while grabbing the water and taking a sip. Harry groaned.

"Don't you remember? You...uh...transformed into a...well..."

"Not that part. That part I remember. What happened to all those soldiers?" Bruce asked looking at Harry.

"Oh, so the turning green part is...um...normal?" He blushed. It wasn't like he hadn't been in these situations before. Aftermath of a battle was something he was all too familiar with and the reason he was on this trip in the first place, to get away from these things. Bruce scoffed at him.

"Sure, normal." Bruce gave Harry an incredulous look.

"Well, it's pretty normal for me at least." Harry mumbled. "You should fight a dragon and then see what you would define as normal." The last part he said under his breath. Despite the fact that Bruce had just participated in a magical battle, he didn't seem remember it, which meant that the Statute of Secrecy was still in full affect and Harry couldn't tell Bruce anything.

"So, the soldiers?" Bruce asked again. Harry couldn't stop himself from blushing again.

"Right, those weren't soldiers. They were part of the terrorist group that was attacking Britain." Harry would have been all to happy to never see them again and the fact that the majority of them were dead now filled him with morbid happiness.

Bruce seemed to take the news well, relaxing against his pillow.

"What am I doing here? How did I get here?" Bruce looked confused. So he was finally realizing where he was.

"Well, after all you did for me with the train ride and everything. Plus, seeing as it was really my fault that we got attacked by terrorists in the first place." Harry paused when Bruce stared at him. "Back home I helped stop the attacks and the terrorists got a little angry at me. I just wanted to get away from that all so I went on vacation. I mean who would think that they would be able to find me in the middle of nowhere Peru?" Harry stopped talking at the look in Bruce's eyes.

"Why are you still here?"

"Well, you did fight my battle so really it was the least I could do." Harry said while running his hand through his hair. It still stuck up all over the place.

"That wasn't what I meant. Why are you still here after you saw what I could become? Why didn't you run away screaming? How can you sit next to me knowing what I am?"

Harry couldn't help but sigh. He understood where Bruce was coming from.

"Would you believe me if I told you that I knew what you were going through?" Harry asked. From the look in Bruce's face Harry doubted that Bruce would ever believe that someone else knew what he was going through. "I can understand why you might not believe me, but I think you need to hear this anyway. I can't explain everything because of classification issues, but I can try my best." Harry noticed Bruce tensing at the word classified and understood. He had never been good with people keeping things from him either.

"During the war, something happened to me, well really I discovered something about myself. See there was a piece of me that wasn't really me. It was like something else was inside of me,  _someone_  else. It was slowly destroying me. I could tell that sometimes my friends would get afraid of something I would say or do, someone that wasn't me would start acting through my body. Using me to do things, terrible things and after awhile I started to feel like it would always be that way. I started to think that the other guy would eventually take over completely and there would be nothing I could do about it. It went like this for months before the final battle. I was fighting with my friends to help save our community school and something happened. The other guy took other for a second, such a short time, but long enough for one of the enemy to shoot a killing shot at me. Long enough for my best friend to sacrifice himself for me. After the battle the other guy was gone, forever this time, but it didn't help. He had already done his damage I lost one of my best friends, my other friend lost her soon-to-be husband, and the world lost a good man. I just couldn't live with myself after that. So here I am on vacation, trying to run away. Pathetic right?"

Harry couldn't do anything, but hang his head in sorrow. He hadn't told the story all the way through in a long time. A lot of people had died that day, but Ron had been the only one to sacrifice himself for Harry, another of a long line. Ron, his best friend, who had promised never to leave him and Hermione, gone in the blink of an eye because of Voldemort's horcrux.

"So, I just wanted to let you know that someone else understood, at least a little."

"Why did you tell me that?" Bruce asked harshly. It seemed that he still couldn't understand Harry.

"I just remembered how lonely I felt with that other guy. How I felt that no one else could understand or relate at all. I just guess I saw something I had gone through and wanted to help." Harry shrugged. "It's not completely the same, and the fact that I can't tell you much about it doesn't lend to my credit. Anyway, enough of me jabbering. You probably have no interest in this story at all and my rambling is getting on your nerves. I should probably go." Harry tucked his chair against the way and scurried around the room a little.

"You are a strange person. I turn into a monster, hurt people, destroy a train station, and you decide to bring me to a hotel and tell me your life story." Bruce looked a little baffled. Harry could understand the feeling and he didn't know why he had told Bruce all of that, but he didn't regret it.

"I've always been abnormal, but I really don't think I would want be any other way. I'll leave you alone for now. The room is paid through the week, it's safe to stay if you'd like. I'm staying in a room down the hall and I will be here for a few more days, so if you want to talk or anything I will be here. Okay?"

Harry turned and headed for the door.

"I'm glad I met you." Harry didn't turn around at the words, but nodded. He was glad he had met the man too. He turned around when he closed the door and allowed himself one last glance at Bruce. Despite what he said Harry doubted the Bruce would stay in the room longer than 30 minutes and doubted even more than he would ever see Bruce again.

Harry had done his part. He had finished his battle. Bruce looked like he was still in the middle of his war.


	3. Potter Manor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/get money from the Avenger's pretty faces or Harry Potter's gorgeous mug.

Natasha allowed herself a smile as her target came into view. The most perfect target she had ever lain her eyes on.

Lord Potter-Black had just returned from a year long vacation through the Americas and you could see a slight tanning on his pale skin. He had returned to the cheers of fans and swooning of teenage girls. Sometime during his year away news had gotten out about his war hero status and his marital availability. Though if Natasha had only been draw to hero complexes and beauty she would have been drowning in men to chose from. No, what made Lord Potter-Black the perfect target was money, his glorious mountains of money that came from the very rare combination of two of the oldest, wealthiest families in Britain.

He had received his extra inheritance and last name from his godfather, the notorious Sirius Black, who posthumously adopted him. The Black family fortune added to the Potter family fortune made Potter-Black one of the wealthiest and most connected men in the country. It wasn't his money that was making the country fawn over him though, that was just the icing on the cake. Potter-Black was a war hero, the best kind, a conquering war hero. He had taken down the leader of the terrorist cell that had been staging attacks all over the country single handed.

The entire thing was hush-hush even in the criminal underground, but there had been rumors that the boy had been trained in secret by the government. Natasha knew better than most just what lengths people would go to have to an ace in their pocket. After all, she had been the ace all her life.

Natasha's smile slipped off her face and she allowed her work mask to slip on. Her job was to get close to Lord Potter-Black by any means necessary and she hadn't found a straight man yet who could resist her.

The skinny black dress that she was wearing showed just enough skin to be risky for the occasion, but covered enough for her to hide two guns and twelve knives on her person. She slinked over to the bar, skin flashing enough to catch and drag the eyes of several guests. Unfortunately, not the guest she was trying to catch.

"May I offer you a drink?" The young Italian man who asked would have been more than enough for her on a regular day, but she had to turn his expensively dressed butt around as she shot him down.

"I'm sorry, but I am waiting for someone." Which was technically true and would leave the Italian open for any advances in the future. Natasha learned in her long, varied career to never shut someone down completely because you never know what they will remember a couple years down the road.

In fact, as most of the night passed away her target hadn't even looked in her direction. She had to turn down three different offers for drinks and six different dance partners. She was starting to think that she was the wrong gender for the job. She pulled down her top some more. Getting the interest of a gay man was harder, but she had pulled off harder.

As she got a little closer to her target she stopped to prepare herself, grabbing a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. She moved gracefully, but quickly through the crowd and at the right moment...

"Oops." Natasha's mask of shock and embarrassment seemed like the right call. She had chosen a English accent for this particular mission, posh yet simple, Lord Potter-Black hadn't seemed the type to fall for an exotic woman. "Oh dear, I've made a right fool of myself. Let me help with that."

The champagne had fallen perfectly, splashing her chest and his pants. She gave an inward smile as Potter-Black's eyes ran over her body lingering in the right places, so not gay, just a gentleman. He was flushing, but Natasha could tell it was more for the attention that she brought upon them, than her immodesty.

"Lord Potter-Black, I must apologize. I get so clumsy after a few drinks." Natasha grabbed a waiter. "Is there a dressing room nearby, I need to clean up?"

"Just down the hallway to the right." The waiter pointed in the direction and scurried off. Natasha paused for a second and wondered if it was an agent in disguise, he went away just a little too quickly. She shook the thought away as she turned back to her target.

"Would you like to follow me? I'm sure I can help with that mess." She gestured to the wet stain on his Valentino suit pants.

"Yes, I think that would be for the best. I'll be back in a few minutes Hermione, go mingle." Potter-Black turned to his companion, a modestly attractive bookish type. Natasha hadn't pegged him to go after the nerdy type, but she could play that role just as well. She gave a little mental sigh at all of the outfits she could have been wearing instead if she had known that was what he liked.

"Harry, I don't..." The brunette looked a little skeptical as she sized Natasha up. Natasha had to resist the urge to smile at her, might be too aggressive.

"I'll be fine." He turned to give her a kiss on the cheek and waved her away. Natasha took the chance to grab his hand and lead him away. It was never too soon to lay claim to a man.

The drawing room was close by thankfully and being alone was exactly what Natasha had in mind.

"I really am sorry about your trousers. Though I think I might have something to help with that." Natasha turned toward him with a smile. "If you could just take off your pants I think I have the perfect tool to get that right out. They are expensive pants after all, I wouldn't want them to get ruined."

Lord Potter-Black stared at her for a little while then sighed and nodded, but instead of taking off his pants like she asked he headed to the door and stuck his head out. Natasha found out why a second later.

"Yes, hello there. If it wouldn't be too much of a bother could you go ask Neville for a spare pair of pants. If he is busy I am sure Lady Augusta will be able to point you in the right direction. Thank you." The Lord turned back around to her and smiled. "There we are. He shouldn't take more than a few minutes and I will be all set. So, there is really no need to worry yourself about me."

Natasha ignore the flash of panic. She couldn't be losing her touch already, could she? It was time to step it up. She turned back to the small sink in the room and wet a towel. She gave one last groan of disappointment for the lost cause that was her dress and then slathered the towel all over her top. Giving the Lord an ample look at her breasts. "You don't have to leave right away, do you?"

She wasn't a fan of the slutty aristocrat act, but they said to get close to him by any means necessary. Any means necessary is exactly what she employed. Potter-Black gave a gulp and tried to force his eyes away from her chest, to little avail. Natasha was very good at her job.

Natasha almost groaned when a knock interrupted the tension. The butler that came into the room immediately after without waiting for the okay was carrying a pair of pants and as soon as he saw her his mouth dropped open in shock. This was just enough to allow Potter-Black to gather up his gentleman act and push the butler from the room, taking the pants in the process. He was turned away from her now. She was guessing so not to be tempted.

"Miss, I would appreciate it if you cover yourself." Natasha sighed and corrected her blouse. New tactic.

Natasha sniffled a little, rubbing her nose, watering her eyes.

"Oh, look at me. I've made a fool of myself again. It's just, my grandmother has gotten ill recently. She has a lot of bills than need to get paid, and I was invited to the party. I thought if I could get you to go out with me I might have a chance of getting some of that money." Natasha sniffled again. "I think I've embarrassed myself enough tonight. I should just go."

It seemed like Potter-Black was having an internal battle with himself, and as he gave a muffle groan Natasha beat down a smile.

"I really am sorry to hear that Miss..." Natasha cut him off.

"Oh no. Please call me Natalie. After the complete mess I made myself in front of you I think we can be on a first name basis." She rubbed her face with her hands hiding her grin as he turned around. One battle won.

"In that case, I guess you can call me Harry."

"I would love that Harry." Natasha smiled at him.

Yes, Lord Harry Potter-Black was the perfect target, almost too gentlemanly to fall for her, but naive enough to give in to her tricks. Natasha could have given herself a pat on the back for a job well done.

Natasha heard a loud crash and subsequent screams.

"What was that?" She asked in the small, scared voice that men seemed to love rallying around. Harry appeared to be no different. He threw the extra pair of pants to the ground and backed away from the door standing in front of her, hero complex indeed.

It was just rather unfortunate that wasn't her job anymore.

"Miss Natalie, now would be a great time to drop the act." Natasha was glad that Harry was facing away from her because the shock on her face would have broken character. She got herself under control and stood quickly, the drunk aristocrat was gone, in its place was Black Widow.

"How did you know?" The fake accent fell away. There was still a slight Russian hint to her accent now, but the American was close to overwhelming it. Harry turned half a face to her, keeping the other eye on the door. He nodded to her new posture.

"The first clue was definitely the fact that you turned down offers from nine other very wealthy, handsome men and decided after having zero drinks to act drunk to spill champagne on me." Natasha made a mental note. She had been fooled, thinking that he hadn't been paying attention to her and instead had been kept track of her all night. She wouldn't make that mistake again. "Though I think the biggest clue was the at least ten concealed weapons on your person. That was all I could spot at least." They turned together as they heard banging down the hall. "Speaking of which. I think I would like one of those now."

Harry held a hand out to her. Natasha stared for a second before giving in. It was very possible that he had weapons and just wanted to get her to give up one so she would be easier to take down later, but she hadn't got that feeling from him. She put a hand into the split in her dress pulling out a medium sized knife and handing it to him.

"Thanks." The noises from the hall were getting closer.

"There were ten." Natasha said suddenly. Harry looked a little surprised and turned to her questioningly.

"What?"

"Ten, I turned down ten men trying to get your attention. I waited two hours and turned down ten men." Natasha said and Harry gave her a large smile and sort of chuckled. "The least thing you could have done was to put me out of my misery. I mean, really, what kind of gentleman are you?"

Harry didn't get to answer because the moment Natasha finished the door to their room swung open. There were five men in the doorway, all wearing rather fanciful masquerade masks and white suits. Natasha gave them 10 points for style. Three of the men turned to Harry, thinking him the harder target. They were proven incorrect at Natasha's knife throw hit one of them in the back of the neck, killing him almost instantly.

The two that were coming after her gave a little pause at that, but continued on. Natasha could see the shape of holsters underneath jackets indicating that they both had guns, but neither of them reached for them. Which meant that they were trying to take hostages alive, which was good for Natasha, but very bad for them.

The first attacked with a punch while the other tried to move around her to flank. She parried the first with a duck and a sweep of her leg. Henchman one fell heavily when the other tried to grab her from behind. A bad idea, she used him as a leverage to kick his partner in the face as he tried to stand up. Then with downward momentum she threw him over her shoulders, right on top of the man who fell.

She quickly moved on top of them and with a quick twist of hand around his head, she snapped his neck. She left his dead body to weight down henchman one so he couldn't escape easily. She turned to help the Lord only to find that her help wasn't needed. Harry was closing the eyes of the henchman with a knife stuck through his chest. She could also see the other guy that attacked Harry on the ground, but she couldn't exactly see the cause.

"You done?" She asked harshly. "I have a prisoner." She gestured behind her to where henchman one was trying to get away. She quickly sat on top of the dead body of his friend, weighting him down more. Harry's shoulder's seemed slumped as he came over to her and her hostage. He wiped some of the blood off his hands and knelt down next to the prisoner.

"Hi. I'm sorry we've met under such unreasonable circumstances. You see I'm generally a pretty laid back guy. Easy to get along with so my friends tell me. Which makes this so unfortunate." Harry's emerald eyes hardened and Natasha swallowed back her shock. She could finally see the soldier in this man, the war hero, and she could believe that he single handed took down the terrorist that had a whole nation at his feet. Harry poked the man in the forehead with a bloodied finger. "See, I really hate one thing and that is people attacking the ones I loved. This leaves you in the unfortunate position of being someone I hate." His eyes flashed and Natasha could see the terror in the henchman's eyes. "So you are going to tell me everyth..."

"We are with May Fell Company. They hired us to attack the party, get as many prisoners as possible and put them up for ransom. There are 40 men in the building, um, 36 now. All of us have guns, I don't know anyone else's names. We were given these masks and told not to talk to each other. Please don't kill me!" The henchman spoke fast, but Natasha nodded.

"Good boy." Harry patted the henchman on the head and with one swoop punched him in the nose, knocking him out. "Ready to go save the day?"

Natasha nodded. If this is what the good guys did, she could get used to it.

* * *

Harry silently cast a stunner and turned to the rest of the room. The rest of the party guest were tucked in a corner, devoid of all of their jewelry and riches, but alive. Harry spotted Natalie, if that was even her real name, finishing off the last of the party invaders with a roundhouse kick to the head. The large room that they were in held the bodies of 23 men. They rest they had taken out before they got here. Harry had made sure they counted 40 and made sure that every man stayed down by hitting them with a stunner.

He smiled at Neville, who finally relaxed and rushed out of the room. No doubt to call the aurors. Harry wouldn't be there when they arrived. Aurors and him had never gotten along, mostly because they thought he was doing their job and he thought that they weren't doing theirs.

He nodded to Augusta, the old vulture would keep the rest of the party guests there until the authorities could arrive and would calm them down after. She was a crazy old witch, but worth twenty times her weight in gold.

He moved across the room gingerly, it had been awhile since he had gone into full battle mode and he already felt sore, which wasn't good since he could still feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins. He tapped Natalie on the arm, careful not to startle her.

"We had better get out of here before the police arrive." Natalie looked at him cautiously, but nodded. Her dark red hair seemed to flow perfectly with her black dress, which astonishingly enough wasn't ripped or damaged beyond the alcohol stain.

Harry exited the building avoiding looking the bodies. His mind was already full of dead bodies, he didn't need to add anymore to the pile.

"Where are we going?" Natalie asked as she hopped into his Ferrari. The car had been a bit of a splurge seeing as he didn't go to the muggle side very much, but really how could you resist.

"I know a place nearby." Harry grinned again. Speaking of splurges. They had barely driven fifteen minutes before they were pulling into a driveway, his driveway. The old Potter manor had been fixed up and made partially muggle, including a nice garage and electricity. Of course, there was still completely magical parts of the property, but Harry had found charm in muggle things, so the front part of his house had turned into that. "Please, come in." Harry opened the front door to the house and lead Natalie inside.

He headed to the kitchen, Natalie following after.

"Please sit, I'll make you a cup of tea, what would you like?"

"Coffee." Natalie slumped against the chair, post adrenaline rush. Harry knew the feeling well.

"I can do that." Harry put the kettle on and turned back to Natalie. "So what agency are you from?" Natalie started to take and Harry stopped her. "No wait, let me guess. Hmm. KGB?" Natalie looked surprised for a second and started to talk, but Harry cut her off again. "No, that's not right. There is something...it's on the tip of my tongue." Suddenly, the light bulb went off. "I know what it is. You are S.H.I.E.L.D. aren't you? But recently so."

Natalie looked shocked and Harry grinned smugly.

"How did you know?"

"Well, I'm guessing you just started because it isn't quite so heavy from you. All S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have this kind of stench to them. I didn't recognize it right away, but it is still there, just in its infancy." Natalie looked a little disgusted and turned her head to sniff a little. "I didn't mean literally, well except maybe sweaty smell. It's just, I don't know how to explain it, but if you know what you are looking for it is definitely there."

Harry smiled at her and the kettle started whistling. Harry put out cups and then filled them with instant mix and boiling water. He stirred and then handed the cup to Natalie, who immediately took a sip. She gave a little moan and Harry smiled.

"God, this is the best thing I have ever tasted. What did you put in this cup? Heaven?" Natalie took another sip and Harry hid his smile in his cup.

"Well, if there is one thing that being rich allows you to do, it is have good coffee." There were definite advantages to being a rich wizard, one of the greatest though, was being able to buy the powder that he had just put in her cup. The powder mixture was expensive even for wizards, but worth it. It turned water into whatever you wanted to drink. It could figure what you desired to most to drink in that moment and gave it to you. Harry had been amazed when he found it in a small wizard shop in the middle of New Orleans French Quarter. It amazed him how much he hadn't known about the Wizarding World. He was so caught up in thinking about the trip that he almost missed Natalie's next question.

"So, I didn't see your friend in the group of hostages." Natalie was staring at Harry a little suggestively.

"Oh no, Hermione left as soon as you stole me away. 'Go mingle' is our code phase. Hermione was only there in the first place to provide a force field to all the old sharks looking for eligible men for their daughters and granddaughters. She would much rather be neck deep in her research. It was hard enough just dragging her out of her piles of paper for two hours. She was pleased to get back to it I'm sure."

"Really?" Natasha asked surprised. "I would have expected her to be more of the soldier type, like you. After all, you did both get knighted." Harry scoffed a little.

"Hermione is a scholar at heart. She was only involved in the war due to her circumstances and her friendship with me. She was a rather reluctant, if good soldier, but her real heart lies in study. Also, she makes a good research scientist. I couldn't make heads or tails of her work, but she is in love with it. I have been trying to drag her away and get her back into the world a little. She lost a fiancé in the war."

"You keep saying war, but I was under the impression that it had been terrorists that attacked Britain." Natalie asked in that too innocent way that had Harry clenching his hands.

"To a small percentage of the population, it was as much of a war on our homeland as it could get. It was just luckily that it didn't spread into the rest the population much." There was so much he couldn't say and it weighted on him.

"So, you live here?" It seemed Natalie could tell when she touched on a hard subject, which was a good skill for an agent to have, but it didn't endear her to Harry.

"Agent Natalie, I think you are under a false impression of me. Chances are you weren't even given my file or a full picture of your mission. Most likely they just told you that I was a target that needed to be protected from a threat. It isn't that uncommon really, S.H.I.E.L.D. likes to keep its eyes on everything, especially specific parties like me." He took another sip of his drink, he really needed firewhiskey for this conversation. Natalie looked shocked.

"You mean you've worked with S.H.I.E.L.D. before?"

"You could say something like that. Have you ever met and Agent Hawkeye or Agent Coulson?" Harry laughed a little at her shocked face.

"They know you?"

"Better than most, worse than some." Harry heard a familiar whooshing of air outside, the heartbeat of a helicopter. "Looks like your ride is here." Harry got up and headed to the window, he could see the driveway and the helicopter lowering onto it.

"I could stay the night, if you wanted me to." He turned back to Natalie who was looking sheepish, but Harry could see the slight cracks in her mask and remembered the fight that had taken place not even an hour ago. He sighed as his better judgment won the battle.

"You are sexy beyond belief and I will probably regret this in 10 minutes, but if I wanted to date a red head who could kill me with her pinky toe I would have married my secondary school girlfriend."

Natalie smirked at him, the first real expression he had seen on her face all night. She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

"Tell me if you change your mind. See you again sometime." Natalie turned without a second thought and headed for the door. Harry went back to his kitchen, maybe if he didn't look at her leaving her wouldn't have the urge to tell her to stop. It was only moments later when he realized that a kitchen cabinet was open and the magical powder that he had told her was instant coffee was all gone.

He got outside fast enough to see the helicopter lifting off and Natalie smirking and waving the box at him. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were all the same. Annoyingly likable buggers.


	4. Saint Mamas Children Charity Auction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/have parties with the Avengers or Harry Potter. God don't I wish.

Tony tossed back his glass of whiskey with a groan, that hit the spot. He looked around in slight confusion, where was he again? From the copious amounts of well dress people and gemstones he could guess a function of some sort. So the better question was really, why was he here? A flash of red hair in the crowd and he was pushing through.

"Pepper! Pepper, there you are. Always beautiful." Tony grabbed her around her waist and pulled her too him. He leaned forward and got a face full of clip board.

"Tony, please, have some decorum. The shareholders came here to see you." She looked a little flustered which only made Tony grin and want to steal her away.

"We don't have to stay do we. I distinctly remember trying to take you out to dinner. I think you kidnapped me. So, really I should get a reward for not fighting back." Tony leaned in again and smiled into the kiss. Pepper would always give into him, it was something he liked about her. He sighed as she pushed away.

"Reward enough?" She pulled up her clipboard and pretended to ignore Tony.

"So, what exactly is this function again?" Tony asked while grabbing two martinis from a passing waiter and handing one to Pepper.

"No thank you Tony." Pepper turned down the martini. Tony shrugged and downed both of them. "Tony, please, can't you stop that for just a moment and try and pay attention. This is a big opportunity to impress investors. They are here to see the genius superhero who is running a world class operation, not a drunk incoherent who is trying to explain the complexities of particle physics to them."

"I don't see why not, the only good time to discuss particle physics is while drunk." Tony grinned and waved to a cute girl in the corner. "Look the fans love me, the stock won't go down until they see me fail. Stop worrying so much."

"Tony, can you just pay attention. Stop ogling the guests and meet some people, mingle, network. Give back to the people that gave you so much." She nodded to one of the waiters who scurried over to receive Tony's empty glasses.

"Right, so you still haven't told me where we are." Tony grinned at her.

"That's because you keep changing the subject. This the St. Mamas Children Charity Auction, it's to help orphaned children."

"Oh, so I should probably buy something right?"

"Yes, I have picked out several nice choices. There are many well known artists who will make a good addition to our new modern art collection after you decided to donate our first one to the Boy Scouts of America. I mean of all the..."

Tony looked around ignoring Pepper. He found the biggest painting hanging from the wall and headed over.

"That one will do nicely." He looked at the sheet on the table in front of the painting. The sheet at a list of names and bids. He scribbled his name at the bottom of the paper and almost doubled the previous person's bid.

"How curious, I never expected you to be a Warhol fan." Tony turned in surprise to see a man walking up with Pepper. He was instantly put on edge. The man patted her arm before walking over to Tony and looking at the sheet he had just signed. "Almost double the market value on this particular piece, Dr. Stark. Is it really worth it?"

"My dad always told me that something is worth the exact amount of money that someone is willing to pay for it." Tony said snidely.

"Is that so?" The man's bright green eyes sparkled behind oval metal rimmed glasses. "Well, I think it's worth just a bit more." He leaned down and signed the sheet below Tony's name, almost doubling the price again. Tony glared.

"Oh really?" Tony grabbed the pen before the man could put it down. He scribbled his name once more and doing the simple calculation in his head tripled the amount of money that the scrawny, well dressed, black haired man had put down. He glared at the man, almost daring him to pick up the pen again.

The man simply laughed.

"You reputation precedes you Dr. Stark, but it really is nothing like meeting you in person."

"Who are you?" Tony said with a slight glare.

"Oh really, I'm no one. Just an interested party." The man said simply.

"Pepper." Tony turned to his faithful ex-assistant. "Who is this guy?" Pepper's eyes lit with something Tony vaguely remembered to be anger.

"Tony. Be polite. This is Sir Harry Potter-Black, the director of St. Mamas Children Charity. He is also the biggest share holder in the company after yourself." Pepper smiled at the man.

"Sir? As in member of the round table, I have tea with the Queen sort?" Tony asked a little surprised. The man chuckled again and gave Tony a cock-eyed grin.

"I've always seen myself as more of a Merlin type. You know, helping the man in shiny metal armor get the girl and save the world. Also, Elizabeth is a lovely woman." The more the man smiled the more Tony found himself contradictory annoyed and involuntarily calmed.

"So, you see yourself as a wizard?" Tony asked.

"Well, we all have our hobbies." The man seemed particularly amused by something, but Tony didn't think he had said anything funny.

"So you are an investor in Stark Industries? How did that happen?" Tony asked.

"That's actually rather interesting. You see I just happened to catch your press conference a few years back. You remember the one where you told the world you would no longer be making weapons? Anyway, while everyone else was selling I decided to start buying. I have never invested in weapons manufacturers, but there is something pleasingly poetic in a weapon's company that doesn't want to make weapons anymore." The man continued grinning.

"So, you decided to buy a crazy person's stock choice?"

"I've always been known to jump into dangerous situations without a second glance. I also have more than enough money to spare. Even if your company tanked it wouldn't be too much of a hit for me. I did have faith in you though. Not everyone can go through what you went through and survive." The man seemed to have a faraway look in his eyes that people usually got when they were remembering something. Tony was immediately intrigued.

"Do you mean my capture?" Tony asked.

"Yes, Afghanistan wasn't it? Terrible business that, but you came out with the man's greatest leap in energy technology. The Arc Reactor is a fascinating thing." The man grabbed a waiter and pointed to someone off in the distance. "That man needs some help." Tony turned and sure enough there was an elderly individual who obviously had too much to drink and was in danger of falling over. The waiter went for help. "I'm sorry, the host must be on top of these things."

"You know about the arc reactor?"

"Well, as much as any novice could. I have never been fully at peace with technology, but when I invest in something I go out of my way to figure out exactly what it has to offer. I can't wait to see what you do with it." Tony was perplexed.

"How can you not be at 'peace' with technology?"

"My school was somewhat medieval in certain aspects. The students weren't allowed any electronics on campus and I never had enough time in summer to catch up on what I had missed. Things evolve so fast you know. How you can create a thing so tiny that can hold so much I will never know."

"Sir Harry Potter-Black, that's a mouthful. What were your parents thinking?" Tony asked, trying to throw the man off.

"I never got to ask them, but I never really like people using my full title either, so if you'd like you can call me Harry." The now dubbed Harry answered. Tony was a little embarrassed. How was he supposed to know that?

"Oh, so they..."

"Died. When I was one, Dr. Stark. A long time ago. I'm over it."

Tony looked around and caught sight of a couple of hanging pictures of children in various parts of the world.

"So that's why..."

"Yes, I started the charity to help others like myself across the world." Harry shrugged and Tony started to like this guy.

"Well, Mr. Twist let's get you something to drink. Make a party out of this night." Harry laughed, but shook his head. Tony was surprised, there weren't many people that would turn down a night with him.

"As enticing as that offer sounds, Dr. Stark, I am afraid I have to refuse. It is a big night for the charity. I need to focus on..." Harry trailed off as he caught sight of someone in the crowd. Tony turned to look, but couldn't see anything. He turned back to Tony. "Dr. Stark, did you see that woman that pass by?"

Tony looked, but he couldn't see wait Harry was looking for.

"What did she look like?"

"Dark red hair, curly. She is kind of short, but is has this aura about her that makes her bigger than she really is. I met her once before, a couple of years back in England at a party in my friend's house." Harry said still looking through the crowd. Tony's eyes widened in shock, he only knew one woman that fit that description.

"Do you mean Natalie? Natalie Rushmore?" Tony spat out her alias without thinking. It was too much of a coincidence. Harry looked back in surprise.

"Yes, that was her name, Natalie. I never caught her last name." That made sense, but why would a S.H.I.E.L.D. shadow be at a party in England. Tony didn't think he really wanted to know. "How do you know her?"

"She works at my company. She was my personal assistant for a little while." Tony inwardly groaned as his thought back, those were a few hellish weeks.

"Really, did you see which way she went. I have to catch up with her." Harry was already moving away.

"Wait, why are you looking for her?"

"She stole something from me, I'm just looking to get some compensation." Harry turned and looked at the painting on the wall, Tony's eyes followed. "Thank you for your donation, Dr. Stark. You have helped a lot of children. I hope you enjoy your painting."

Just like that Sir Harry Potter-Black disappeared into the crowd and Tony turned back to Pepper.

"Pepper, you can take care of this right?" Tony was already walking to the door.

"Tony, wait, where are you going?" Pepper has having a hard time keeping up in that dress of hers. Tony turned around, grabbed her waist, and kissed her soundly on the lips. Surprise attacks work best.

"I need to go fire up the computers. I have some research to do. It will be a late night." Tony kissed again and rushed out the door.

* * *

Harry leaned back in his wingback chair with a sigh. His whole body was a sore and that wasn't including his brain which was shooting spikes of pain through his eyes. Charity functions always took it out of him, but this one turned out well. He had even earned twice the amount of money than normal thanks to Tony Stark's ego. All in all, it was a good night.

He drinking his firewhiskey when he heard it, a tapping on a window. He groaned as he turned around and groaned again when he saw who was outside standing on his balcony. The gleaming of red and gold metal in a distinctive man shape was enough to quash his hopes of an early night in.

The stood from his chair and slowly made his way to the balcony doors. He was still achy. He had barely opened the door when Stark pushed through and stood inside his living room. A giant metal clad man was not the weirdest thing that had ever been in his apartment, but it was close.

"This is more quaint place than I thought you would live in." Stark pointed to his surroundings.

"I just needed a place to live, Dr. Stark, not a place to hold my ego." Harry looked pointedly out the window at the tower going up. Just a week ago the large letters had been placed on the side, spelling out Stark's name. "Besides, just having space outdoors and a view was good enough for me. I have always felt most at home high off the ground."

"Yeah, I noticed that. Your balcony is a great landing zone. It is almost like it was made for that." Stark stared out the window at the rooftop balcony. Harry had to stop himself from chuckling. Stark would have no idea just how right he was. The balcony was a great landing zone for his top of the line Firebolt, just like New York City was a great flying zone.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure, Dr. Stark?" Harry asked, retaking his seat in front of his fireplace. It reminded him a lot of the Gryffindor common room fireplace, which is one of the reasons he had bought the apartment.

"I looked you up." Harry paused and stared at the Stark.

"I would have expected nothing less from you, Dr. Stark." Harry said calmly. "I've seen that thing come from a suitcase." Harry said pointing at his suit. "Can it turn back into one?"

"Of course, it's not damaged in anyway, it will come off just fine." Stark was about to continue when he saw a look on Harry's face and stopped. "Why?"

"This is conversation that is best had while comfortable with a drink in hand." Harry took out another glass and started pouring Stark some firewhiskey. If the rumors were even slightly true he was sure to love the wizard drink. "You are decent under there right? You don't go commando?" Harry looked a little skeptically at the suit. He had heard stories about Stark's antics, but wasn't prepared to get that up close and personal with the playboy.

"Don't be stupid. I save that for Saturdays. Wonder twin powers activate, form of briefcase." Stark grinned a little as the suit started moving on its own, obviously very pleased with himself. The arms and legs retracted into the chest area and Harry could hear the gears shifting as the suit fell into a contained case. Stark bent down to pick it up and clipped the top shut which then sealed itself up.

"Let me guest, it only responds to you?" Harry asked.

"That would be telling. Now what is this I heard about a drink?" Stark sat down in the chair across from Harry. Harry handed him a drink and then watched as he took a drink. He started grinning when Stark started coughing.

"What is that, acid? Are you trying to poison me?" Though even while he said it Harry could see him looking at the drink speculatively.

"It is a local drink where I am from. The strongest I have ever found. I am thinking of letting a company of mine start distributing it to the public. We just needed to make a version that passed inspections." Muggle inspections that was. The form that Stark was drinking was one of the new recipes that didn't cause the drinker to belch fire. Not as fun as the magic version, but just as potent. "I would be willing to sell you some before it goes to market. If you are interested."

"I need to see if I can get the feeling back in my tongue yet." Stark looked at the drink again, still curious. Harry grinned.

"So, what did you find that made you come all the way over here in your Iron Man suit?"

"What didn't I find? You are a crazy mystery."

"Yes, I am aware. I was just wondering if there was anything in particular that stood out that made you take the initiative to come over here." Harry took another sip of his drink. Stark looked at him as if he was trying to figure out why an engine wasn't working. Like he wanted to take Harry apart and see how he worked. Which would have been unnerving if Harry hadn't been so intimate with the press.

"July 1995." Harry gulped down the rest of his drink and poured himself another. This was definitely not a conversation he wanted to have sober.

"What do you know?"

"Not much really. It is amazing how vague the files of you are. I mean, I can look up anyone in the world, hack into any government database and there would be more information on a two week old than there would be on you. For someone who is so much in the spotlight there really isn't much about you. Not about your school years at least, or the feat which won you a knighthood. You went to a school for the gifted, going home in the summer to live with your aunt and uncle. The entire story is kind of a black hole. Even your classified files are a mystery. Who has blank classified files? I mean really who has time to put a classified stamp on and scan in a bunch of blank pages?" Harry doesn't say anything. Those files aren't blank, but Tony Stark wouldn't ever be able to see them. The most interesting thing they had learned from that experiment was that the magic on a piece of paper transferred into computer images, who knew?

"Dr. Stark, you have a question?"

"Right, so there I am looking through a file on a ghost and this little blip comes up. A hospital report with your name on it. It was a small hospital in northern England and the report was only about two days long, but it had some very interesting information on it. Like the fact when you came in you with extremely malnourished and dehydrated to the point where the doctors didn't think you would make it. That wasn't the worrying part though. The list of injuries was extensive including mysterious nerve damage, none of the doctors could figure out how it was inflicted. One doctor even wrote down that the injuries were similar to that of a prisoner of war." Stark finished with a long stare at Harry.

Harry just took another sip.

"There is a town in northern England called Little Hangleton. It is quite small, almost unknown really. It is also the birthplace of a terrorist. At the end of my fourth year at school I was kidnapped and taken there. It was in the middle of this tournament that my school was holding and a teacher was given the opportunity to kidnap me. He had stayed hidden an entire year just for the opportunity. I was handed over to the terrorist. The one that I would get the metal for defeating years later. I was a," Harry laughed a little and took another drink, " _guest_  in his company for almost two months. A fourteen year old, with that  _creature_. It was difficult, but one of my captors made a mistake, one that allowed me to escape. Like your captors mine too underestimated me. I got to the middle of town and found this really old couple. The sweetest family in the world, Martha and Giles Hichsberry. They must have thought I was crazy or dying, but they took me in and when I demanded that I couldn't be allowed to stay in town and they decided to go to London instead and started to drive me there. We got a few hours outside of town before I collapsed, I was unresponsive. Fearing the worst they took me to the nearest hospital. Where I stayed for two days, unconscious before I woke up and called someone to get me."

Harry stared into the fireplace now. It wasn't a time he liked talking about.

"A fourteen year old went through that?" Harry turned to see Stark's disgusted and angry face. "What kind of man...no...what kind of monster would do that?"

"He was fully insane." Harry said without a second thought. "That didn't make him any less dangerous though. Anyway, after my friends came and got me they kind of freaked out themselves. They were so worried, frantic even about it never happening again that they kind of lost it. They took it upon themselves to train me in self defense, and when they thought they taught me all they could they started contacting others."

"S.H.I.E.L.D." Stark cut in.

"Yes, they were one. There were others though. Too many to count. I got good, very good." Harry paused for a drink. "Which allowed me to eventually beat him. I took him head to head and won. I am the only person who gets to say that." There was silence for awhile. Just the crackling of wood.

"It wasn't right." Stark looked lost. "It wasn't right what they did. Any of them. Kidnapping a kid, torturing them that is all kinds of messed up, but what your friends did was even worse. No kid should be a soldier and for them to turn you into one was wrong."

Harry shrugged it was too little, too late for that kind of thinking and you could get lost in 'what ifs' if you weren't careful.

"It was war. People are different in war." There was silence again. Stark broke it again. Harry was beginning to think he couldn't take silence.

"How come I haven't meet you before?" Harry laughed.

"When I tried calling to make an appointment I kept getting rescheduled or ignored. I had to bribe Ms. Potts with a large donation to her favorite charity to even get you in the room tonight. Apparently she had to kidnap you to even get you near me. I must say it is the farthest I've ever gone to meet a person. Usually, I am the one having to turn people away." Harry leaned back in his chair, relaxing a little.

"You started that charity, Saint Mamas Children." Stark said. Well, that was random.

"Yes, I did."

"Why did you do that? All that money and no one to tell you what to do. Why would you start a charity? Why not start dating supermodels and buying fast cars?" Harry laughed again.

"Because that's what you did?" Harry shook his head. "Remember I told you about my parents. It just seemed like the right thing to do."

"All of these good Samaritan vibes are making me feel icky. So one more question and then I'm off to my spectacularly gorgeous girlfriend. Why Saint Mamas? I mean why even a Saint. It is kind of overdone and more than a little cliché. I don't even see a crucifix around here so you can't be that religious."

"You want to know an interesting thing about Saint Mamas? He is also the patron Saint of torture victims." Harry drank down more firewhiskey.

Stark had a look of understanding on his face.

"I have always had a kind of fascination with patron saints. My school had never been one for religious teachings, but it is hard to live in the world and just ignore it. Religion is everywhere you look now. Even my rather backward school got off for Christmas. We have a hospital in my community called Saint Mungos. I spent a lot of time there after the war. It was mostly visiting others, but I have been stuck in a lot of hospitals in my life too." Harry took another drink of firewhiskey. "If you have ever been in a hospital then you would know that there really isn't much to do there. So I started looking up patron saints. Saint Mamas became mine. Anyway, after school and traveling around the world I decided to settle down. One of the things that caught my attention again were saints. " He fondled a necklace he had on. Stark caught a glimpse of a lion on it.

"So, a non-religious, billionaire torture victim like yourself becomes obsessed with patron saints while stuck in the hospital and decides to make a charity. You've got an interesting life story." Stark said while taking a sip of his drink. He coughed a little again, but Harry could tell he was falling in love with it as much Harry himself was.

"You really don't know the half of it." Harry said under his breath.

"I think that's enough heart-to-heart girly moments for tonight, thank you." Stark stood up. "Can I keep this?" He held up his drink. Harry grinned.

"I'll do you one better." He pulled on his extra bottle. "You can have this one. Now, do you need me to call a cab or get you a car. I doubt it is legal to fly that thing drunk." Harry pointed to the red metal briefcase. Stark laughed.

"That's okay, my driver is outside."

"You mean that you have a driver right outside, but you flew up here in that, Dr. Stark?"

"Well, we all have our hobbies." He shrugged. "Call me Tony. See you later Oliver." Harry grinned as Tony swaggered out of the apartment with his briefcase in one hand and the bottle in the other.

"You don't even know the half of it." Harry sighed and sunk back into his chair. Time for some sleep.


	5. The Shrieking Shack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/have sexy lingerie parties with the Avengers or Harry Potter. Though the thought has kept me up from time to time.

Steve had been here for a month. He still wasn't used to it. He didn't think he ever would be. The cars had changed, the people had changed, all the places he remembered had changed too. It seemed like even the lights were brighter now than they were back then, and harsher, revealing more flaws. Steve hated it.

To go from the end of a World War to a future where nothing made sense anymore. He had already given up on most of the new technology, televisions even seemed out of reach. He couldn't walk through Time Square without having a bit of a panic attack. There were too many people, too many screens, too many stores, too many cars, there was just  _too much_.

He didn't know why he started wandering the streets at night. Maybe he just had to get used to the new flow of the city. Though, he thought, it was probably because his apartment scared him most of all. He had given up when he couldn't figure out how to make coffee. Things whirled that shouldn't have whirled. There were certain things that should remain completely still when he used them, the toilet was one of them. Steve didn't know who had created the automatically flushing toilet, but he figured it had probably evolved from German torture techniques. The one time it had flushed on its own without Steve even being near it he had rushed out of the apartment like it had a ghost in it.

He had escaped back into Brooklyn. His hometown, but not really his home anymore. He had found a few buildings that he remembered, places that had stood the test of time. They were few and far between. He had once spent an hour just staring at someone's apartment building because it's shutters had reminded him of his first home.

So, while he had taken to roaming the streets at night he always tried to help. If anything, he was trying to do his part to lower city violence. While it may not be his home, it was still the place he lived and there was nothing else he was required to be doing. The police dispatchers had gotten used to him calling in the middle of the night, but when they arrived all the officers found were unconscious bad guys and no sign of the guy who made the call. Steve was never one for running away, but Director Fury had expressly ordered him not to make a scene with the police.

It was approaching midnight on a Tuesday. Steve didn't know the month, he didn't really care. He didn't even care to know the exact street he was walking down, he purposefully avoided looking at street signs. Every single time he did he just kept getting flashbacks of what the street used to look like, or where he had gotten beaten up, or where Bucky had saved him. Bucky. That was another giant can of worms he couldn't force himself to jump into.

Forcing himself out of his own thoughts, he started to pay attention to his surroundings, it was about time he should start heading back. It was hard to tell the time in a city whose lights never went off. That is when he saw them.

Two men were following a shorter figure. They were getting pretty close too. Steve started to walk faster. It seemed like he would be able help someone tonight after all. He started walking faster when he saw two other men turn the corner and start walking to the figure. Four on one wasn't good odds for anyone besides himself.

Steve groaned and almost called out when the figure turned down an alley. Apparently, human stupidity never changed. Steve started running now. He was only a block away. He would be able to get there in time.

"Really, gents what seems to be the problem?" The British accent wafted from the alleyway. Steve was close now.

"Just give use your money, and no one needs to get hurt." The Brooklyn accent was heavy, and the swooshing of metal Steve heard, he knew came from a switchblade. Just then Steve turned the corner.

"Get away from him." Steve said almost instinctively. "If you don't want to get hurt I strongly suggest you back away."

The goons turned to him. Steve could see the figure of the man behind them putting something back into his pocket.

"Oh, and whatca gonna do about it if we don't?" The man with the switchblade asked. Steve could tell he was the leader of this particular gang.

"Stop you." Steve said honestly.

"Get him, boys." The three follower goons rushed Steve, but they hadn't been trained so they offered no more resistance than a bug hitting a windshield.

Steve wasn't really paying attention to the leader anymore. Keeping his eyes on the goons attacking him. A duck and a punch to the face took out the first one easily. Another tried to get him from the side, but with a well timed kick the second goon hit the wall behind him with a thump, knocked out. The third goon was looking a little more hesitant, but started to come anyway. Until the cracked voice of his leader stopped him.

"Stop! We gotta get outta here." Steve and the third goon turned back to the leader. They saw the forgotten man standing behind him, holding a gun to the leader's head.

"It really is bad form to leave your gun in the back of your trousers and then turn away from an enemy. Are you really that stupid?" The British man looked at ease with the gun in his hands. He had done this before. Steve knew the posture of a soldier when he saw it and this man had that posture. "Now then, why don't you pick up your little friends and skulk off. I think I'll keep this if you don't mind?" The man waved the gun a little, making Steve frown and the goons freeze in terror. "I don't think you are really qualified to be using it."

The leader backed away while nodded. He and the third goon booked it out of the alley, leaving behind their two friends.

"Ah, look they forgot about their buddies. How sad." The British man tucked away the gun in his bag.

"That wasn't really safe. You should have left that to me." Steve said looking at the bag. "Guns are not toys."

"Lighten up, man. The safety was on and my finger was off the trigger the whole time. It was just a little scare tactic. Those boys couldn't be left carrying it around. Chances are they would shoot one another and make a lot of paperwork for a cop that has better things to be doing."

"Still, it is bad form to be waving a gun around." Steve said seriously. This man should know that guns should not be used for frivolous purposes.

"You sound like my first drill sergeant." The man then looked at the thugs on the ground. "Alright then, do you have your phone on you? We should probably call the police."

Steve looked at him confused. What did he mean by phone?

"What do you mean? Why I would I have a phone on me?" Steve didn't know what he was talking about.

"You know." The British man looked at him like he was crazy. "I believe you Americans call it a cell phone, mobile phone. The little toy in your pocket that you use to call people."

"I don't have the slightest idea..." Then Steve remembered. The small box that had been left on one of the tables in his apartment. Steve remembered the agent saying something about a phone, but he hadn't been paying that much attention. Besides, the whole idea of carrying around a phone seemed a little silly. "No, I don't."

The man sighed.

"Yeah, that would be too convenient." The man brushed himself off a little and then came over to Steve. "The name is Harry. I've got a pub a few blocks over, it has a phone." He held out his hand and Steve shook it, forgetting his strength for a second. The man winced and when Steve released his hand he rubbed it.

"Steve Rogers. It is nice to meet you." Good etiquette was the first thing that Steve's mother had pounded into his head. Even his her boy wasn't the biggest on the block, he would certainly be the best mannered. "Why don't you have one of those things?

"They have never really agreed with me. They always seem to break at the most inopportune time. Follow me." Harry told him and trotted off down the street. "The pub is actually brand new. It hasn't even opened yet."

Steve didn't know what a brand new pub was supposed to look like, but he didn't think it would look anything like this. The whole outside was moss covered stones. The wooden sign, looked like driftwood that had huge gashes on it.

"The Shrieking Shack? That doesn't stand for something dirty, does it?" Steve asked. Harry laughed.

"No, it was just a place that me and my friends used to go hang out at sometimes. It was this giant wooden shack that was rumored to be haunted. My friends liked to imagine it was used by a werewolf on the full moon because there were all this gouges in the walls and floors. Anyway, I liked the feel of it. It was the first place I thought of when I started to think of making a pub. Come on in." Harry opened the door and walked inside, waving at Steve to follow.

Steve walked into the bar after Harry and paused in shock. He fell in love with the place at first glance. The wood that covered the place was old, but strong. The lights were a soft orange glow, the sign of age. The entire place looked like it was frozen in a time long ago, before even 1940. It looked ancient, but brand new. Steve could see the cushions on the seats, never been sat in before. The tables were still glossy and the scratches that were in them were decorative, not from overuse. Even the cash register on the counter wasn't new. It was one of the oldest Steve had seen and the detailing on it was exquisite. Steve felt that he could stay there forever.

"Are you going to come in any further? The bar isn't open yet, but I'm the owner so we can take what we want." The strange man jumped behind the bar counter. Steve thought that was a little odd seeing as the door to get behind the bar was right next to him, but didn't mention it. "Sit down, I'll get you a drink."

"That's okay, I don't..." Steve didn't continue any further because Harry had disappeared into a backroom. He could hear sounds out of it a few moments later and thought that Harry was calling the police. He settled himself into a sit at the bar and almost moaned in satisfaction. The entire place felt more like home to him than any shutter. Steve was just trying to convince himself to leave when Harry came back.

"There, all done. Now let's get you that drink." Harry turned around and grabbed a bottle off the shelf. Marauder's Firewhiskey was the label on the bottle, but Steve didn't think he had ever heard of firewhiskey before. Which was really par for the course, nothing else made sense here, why would the alcohol. "Drink up."

Steve looked at the drink in distaste. However, he couldn't refuse it, because telling someone that you couldn't get drunk off of alcohol made for a long and terribly repetitive conversation. He picked up the glass, best get over with it quick. He tossed back the glass in one fell swoop, drinking the entire thing. He immediately started coughing.

"God, what is that?" He looked at the bottle again, but everything seemed a little blurry. He coughed.

"Sorry, I should have warned you." Harry looked at least a little apologetic. Steve shook his head a little getting rid of the blurry vision. It was then that he started to feel it. The beginning of a buzz. Something he hadn't felt since the serum had taken affect.

"Wait, what was that?" Steve asked with wonder in his voice. He grabbed the bottle out of his hand. "What is firewhiskey? I've never heard of it before."

"Yeah, you wouldn't have. The whole reason a bought this pub is because of that. I actually own a brewery and we have been testing out the market different places. I thought that the best place to try would to be in my own pub. So I made this place." Harry waved an arm around. "We actually have a full range of alcoholic beverages to try. Lily Pad Lager, Shack Scotch, five different ales: Hogwarts, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. There are a few others too, but I want to see how these work first."

"That is a lot of drinks for just one brewery." Steve said, pouring himself another glass, the buzz was starting to leave already.

"Yes. It's kind of a family secret, but we always have enough." Harry pulled back the bottle and poured himself some. "I have also yet to find someone I couldn't get drunk. The magic touch a suppose."

Steve drank his next glass at a somewhat steadier pace. He let the silence and comfort of the bar wash over him. It was a type of piece he could get used to. He couldn't even hear the noise of the city.

"So, you are drinking and I'm a bartender, let's have a story." Steve looked up from his fourth glass, surprised that Harry had let the silence last so long. The alcohol was really starting to work on him. He looked at Harry again. The clothes that he was wearing looked expensive and tailored to fit. He could understand why someone would want to mug him. Steve scoffed.

"You? A bartender? I doubt it." Taking another sip of his drink. Harry gave a cock-eyed grin.

"Well, I own a bar and I happen to be tending it at this time." Harry continued to smile at Steve. Steve forgot himself.

He felt so comfortable in this bar, with Harry, that he completely forgot were his was and who he was.

"I just don't understand it." Steve said despondently.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Anything, anymore. It is all so different. I go to sleep and dream of my old life and when I wake up I just don't get it. How can so much have changed already? How can I have missed so much?" Steve drank the rest of his glass and poured another, his fifth.

"Maybe you are looking at the wrong things." Steve turned his head up to Harry, who had put down his drink. "See, for the first 18 years of my life I had lived in this very isolated community. It was separate from the rest of the world. Well, that's not completely true, for the ten or so years I lived with my relatives, but they were just as isolated in a their own way. They were trying to protect the world from me, I think. Anyway, long story short, once I got out everything seemed different. Impossible to understand even." Steve looked at the man.

"How did you live with it?" Harry laughed at the question.

"I didn't." Harry took a sip of his drink. "For the first year after my release I just escaped. I lost myself in the Americas, traveled across the world. Met people, saw incredible things and at the end of my journey I realized that at some point during the year I had lost that feeling. I even fell in love with New York, a place that you can disappear into. Though, thinking on it, I figured out what it was. Do you want to know the secret?" Harry asked with a grin.

"Yes, of course." Steve desperately wanted to know. He wanted to feel at home here, to stop having longing dreams of the past. He wanted to move on.

"Stop looking for the things that are different, and start looking for the things that are the same." Steve didn't understand.

"I don't understand." Harry sighed.

"Look, I traveled the world and you want to know the one thing that was the same in ever place I went?" Harry paused. "The people. No matter where you go the people there are always the same. We all have wants, dreams, hopes, fears. We love and lose. Stop getting lost in where you were and start living where you are. I'm not saying forget your past, celebrate it even, but the quickest way to start living in the present is to start meeting people."

Steve sighed a little, he didn't think he was quite ready for that yet. So much had changed, even talking to Harry was difficult. There were so many things that he had to remember not to say to someone. It didn't make for a good starting point in a friendship.

"Thanks for the drink. I really needed that, but I think it is time to go." Back to his confusing apartment and dreams. Steve paused when Harry grabbed his arm.

"Hey, look. The pub is opening on Friday. I'll be happy to serve you then and if you want to talk more. I'm here, okay?"

Steve nodded and headed out. Well, maybe he had made one new friend, and that was a start.

* * *

Harry wasn't dumb nor was he naive, he knew exactly who Steve Rogers was the moment he saw him. He still had a couple of good friends in S.H.I.E.L.D. and when Captain America had been revived from his ice bath, it had been big news. Harry could still remember the call he had received. Apparently, Captain America was a war hero from World War II who had saved New York from a bomb. Harry had smiled and thanked him for the information, but didn't feel any particular enjoyment. He hadn't been affected.

So, the last thing he had expected was for Steve Rogers to come save him from a mugging in Brooklyn. The second to last thing was for Steve to become the first regular at his pub.

The Shrieking Shack had been a pretty good success so far and Marauder's Firewhiskey was starting to find its way into Muggle pubs all across the world. He thankful for magic, because otherwise there was no way that he would have been able to do it. He thought the best way to make the Marauders live on in infamy was to put out a magical alcoholic drink named after them. Harry thought they would have liked that.

"Harry, another please." Steve was sitting at the end of the bar like he normally did. Harry had tried to convince he multiple time to get out in the world more, but it seemed like Steve was just going through a rotation of apartment, gym, and pub. It wasn't a way to really live life, but Harry knew better to interfere more than he already was. The alcohol that he gave Steve had been magically enhanced make him drunk, and even that didn't last that long. Harry had even taken up being Steve's sparring partner. Harry was thankful for the exercise and refresher, but he still didn't think it was a good idea to keep so isolated.

"Harry, another." Harry sighed and went over again, he had just filled it.

"Bad night?" He had his fair share of those.

"Yeah." Steve chugged down the rest of the glass and waved for more. He couldn't get drunk for very long, but Harry always saw him trying to make it last.

"What to talk about it?"

"Bucky." Steve choked out. Harry winced and looked around. The bar was mostly empty just a couple of customers in a back booth. He waved a Notice-Me-Not charm over them, Steve was too out of it to notice.

"Who was he?" Harry asked.

"My best friend. He died saving me." Steve seemed to be crying into his glass, which was good because Harry felt like he had just been punched in the gut, Ron. Steve didn't need that story right now though, he had his own.

"Tell me about him." Harry said, pouring more firewhiskey into the cup and grabbing one for himself.

"He was the best friend I ever had. Even when I was small he stuck by me. He stood by my side so many times, saved me from so many beatings. He was always the best, strongest kid in the school and he wasn't a bully about it. Even when we grew up and girls were flocking to him, he always tried to look out for me. He went off to war without me though and I couldn't take it. I had to be able to help him, to help the country and just because of my size I couldn't."

"What happened?" Harry asked even though he already knew the story. Steve needed to tell it, and Harry was willing to listen.

"I got in, eventually. Made it overseas, finally where I belonged, but Bucky wasn't there anymore. He had been captured. I went to go save him because I had no other choice. They were going to leave him there, him and the other soldiers. I couldn't let that happen to them, to him. I saved him and for awhile it was great. Well, not great because there was a war and we were fighting and killing, but good because I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. He was still always looking out for me though, even though I was bigger than him. He was the best backup anyone could ask for, but it got him killed. He died saving me. How can I just forget that?"

"You don't." Harry said quickly, because it was the truth. "That sacrifice will always be there. What he did for you will always be too much. You don't forget, though, you don't put it past you, or let it go. You remember it, you celebrate his life, and try to live to your fullest, because that is what he sacrificed his for and if you waste it..." Harry stopped. He had forgotten himself. Steve was looking at him with wide eyes, drink forgotten. "Sorry."

"No, I it's okay. I think you are right." Steve pushed drink away. "I think I've had enough for tonight. Thanks for the conversation." He put down a stack of money to cover the bill. Harry almost told him to take it back, but it wouldn't be a good image if he was seen refusing money from customers.

He looked around a little.

"Hey, once you are done do you want to come to the gym for a sparring match." Harry almost groaned at the question. His back was still covered in bruises from the last time he had fought with Steve. Although the man tried to hold back, he always forgot himself in the heat of the fight.

"Not tonight. I have to go pick up my friend from the airport. We will be traveling around a little this weekend. She has only been here a few times and it is always a celebration when I get to drag her from her research."

"She's a scientist?" Steve asked innocently.

"Of a sort. She is one of my oldest friends from school. We met when we were eleven. Such a long time ago." Harry started packing away the glasses. "Will you be alright by yourself?"

"Yeah, I've got some punching bags that need a good whacking." Steve paused looking out the window and groaned. "The ugly tower is finally done. I mean what sort of man does that to the skyline." He pointed to the newly completed Stark Tower.

Harry grinned.

"Yeah, that must be some sort of guy." He laughed a little as Steve closed the door behind him.


	6. S.N.O.T. Laboratory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/throw pies at the Avengers or Harry Potter.

Thor stared down at Mjölnir. He clenched his fist. He couldn't quiet bring himself to pick it up, not yet. He could see smoke and debris littering the ground not too far from him. The cell had not survived the landing, it wasn't meant to. He thought back to what got him here in the first place. Loki. His brother, so troubled and mislead that he had brought war to a peaceful realm.

Odin had told him soon after Loki's fall of his parentage. Thor could not find it in himself to care much, Loki was his brother first and foremost. They had been raised together, been told the same stories, fought side by side in countless battles. Thor had lost his taste for violence toward the Frost Giants after his exile anyway. Yet, somehow, it felt as if he wasn't really the one that needed to learn the lesson. Loki needed to come home, he needed to see the error in his ways. Thor would do anything in his power to make that come true.

"HERMIONE, IT IS OVER HERE!" Thor turned his head, he had not thought there were any mortal villages nearby. At least, he had not seen any while falling.

"I'm right behind you Harry, no need to scream." They were getting closer and Thor had to decide quickly if he wanted to leave before they saw him. He turned by to Mjölnir, but couldn't bring himself to pick it up.

"Hermione, look over here. There is a man here, maybe, he saw what happened." The mortals that came over the ridge were two, a man and a woman. Thor looked at them with unease. They approached him quickly, one appeared to be distressed.

"Oh dear, look at him. He is injured." The woman was upon him now. "Sir, are you okay? What happened here."

"I am fine, mortals. The cage could not contain me." Thor told them truthfully.

"You definitely look injured, buddy." Thor tensed when the man got close enough for him to see his face. Thor's hand automatically went to Mjölnir. The man looked too much like Loki, black hair of some length and green eyes that held too much misery. He made himself relax though, the man was much too tiny to be his brother. There was no way that Loki would allow himself to be hidden in such a tiny and weak form. Thor looked at the man's spectacles forcing himself not to see his brother, Loki would not be in a flawed form. "Hey, wait. Did you say..." The man looked at the smoking ruins and back to him. "You were in that thing?"

"No primitive cage could keep me."Thor looked at the distressed faces of the humans. He did not understand why they were so worried.

"I think he had a concussion, Harry." The woman looked at her friend and back to him. "Did you hit your head?" She said slowly pointing to her head.

"The fall caused me no such injuries."

"Of course it didn't, let's get you inside to sit down. Okay?" The woman nodded her head slowly and reached out to take his arm. As he moved the man caught sight of something behind him.

"Hey, is that yours?" The man who looked too much like his brother reached toward Mjölnir. Thor stopped him, grabbing his arm before it could reach.

"It belongs to me. It is not for mortal hands." Thor said calmly. Mjölnir wouldn't react to anyone except himself, but it was always good to remove temptation. No mortal should have such a power.

"Alright, let's just get you inside." The man grabbed his other arm and started to lead him as well. Thor didn't stop them. He gave one last glance to Mjölnir and the giant city in the distance. The battle would not be for some time yet, and he was starting to require sustenance.

As they crested the hill Thor caught sight of what they were leading him to. It was a small building in the middle of a field. The field itself was shielding it from prying eyes. It was no wonder he had not seen in on the way down.

"We just got it yesterday, so there really isn't much in there. However, the old residents left some of their food and furniture. So it is semi well stocked." The lady, Hermione she had been called, seemed to be talking a lot as she lead them. "I think there is a first aid kit in their somewhere, so we should be fine. I only noticed a few scratches anyway. So, please come in."

The door opened and Thor was taken inside. The room that they entered looked to be similar to a feasting hall, with tables everywhere. However, instead of food, there were papers on the tables. Thor thought back to his exile. Jane Foster had a similar room, but she referred to it differently.

"This is a laboratory?" Thor asked. Hermione looked at him strangely.

"Um, yes. It is. Harry, here has been trying to get me to the states ever since he moved to New York city. I didn't want to move my research though. When he found this place, well, I couldn't just ignore it. This parcel of land is the exact type that I have been looking for. Harry, saw it as an opportunity to get me closer and I accepted. It is a little bit of a mess since I just moved in."

"Don't listen to her, it will always be a mess. This is the only place that she allows to be a mess."

"It is not messy if I know exactly where everything is. This is the new home of the Survey of Nonnative and Occult Territory." The woman waved her hand at the room excitedly.

"I still can't believe you named it snot." The man said with a snort.

"It isn't snot, Harry. It is S.N.O.T." The woman turned angrily to the man, who Thor guessed was called Harry.

"I do not understand." Thor looked between the two mortals slightly confused. What were they talking about? The man scoffed again.

"It is just a fancy way of saying that she researches weird things. Like if someone thinks they have discovered something from another world, like a metal not found on Earth or a rock that couldn't have formed here. She studies it to discover exactly what it is. Hermione," The man pointed to the woman. "The crazy lady over there, she is the one that pioneered the field. She is the foremost expert on weird and unusual things. I'm sure there is a technical term for it that I don't remember. Whenever the government or someone else finds something they can't really explain, they come to her. Most of the time at least."

Thor nodded.

"It seems like a noble profession. You should be proud to be her friend, not insult her." Thor looked to the Loki lookalike with disdain. One should never insult a lady.

"We have been friends for a very long time. We can call each other whatever we want." The tiny Loki said and the lady Hermione laughed in response. Thor crossed over to the tables and picked up some papers.

"What are ley lines?" He asked confused. He had never heard the term before, maybe it had a different name on Asgard. Lady Hermione looked shocked and distressed. She quickly grabbed the paper out of Thor's hand and started moving away other things as well. She started frantically cleaning up. Thor was even more confused.

"They are...um...well, they are... Harry help me out here." Hermione said looking to the Loki lookalike. The man named Harry looked amused, but turned to Thor to explain.

"Ley lines are pathways underneath the Earth's crust that carry power."

"There are power lines in crust of Midgard." Thor looked shocked at the ground below him. If he remembered correctly, power was another term for electricity. Which was just the word they gave to controlled lightening. There was lighting in the ground. He looked back to tiny Loki confused. The man looked even more amused.

"I just going to assume that by Midgard you mean Earth." Thor nodded to the man. "So, it's not real power. Not like electricity or anything like that. Ley lines are full of the power that runs the Earth. Some call it magic and most think it doesn't exist. At least, not in any way that we can measure it. However, there are a few places on Earth where things just work a little differently. Plants grow faster, or the weather is different, or earthquakes occur more. These are the places where ley lines intersect or pool. This is one of them." The man pointed to the ground. Then shrugged and turned to his friend. "That about right, Hermione?"

The woman looked flushed and out of sorts, but she stopped trying to clean up.

"Mostly right. It is a rather simplified explanation, but it will do. The most interesting part, is that ley lines are quite literally the veins of Earth. One of the reasons I agreed to move here is that places like this need to be protected from intervention by other forces. We are trying to keep this world thriving, by protecting that which normal people don't look for." She looked very proud of her work. It was a pride that Thor could understand. He had protected Asgard from many threats, and would die doing so. It was the most important work that one could undertake.

Thor looked around the rooms some more and then caught sight of something he had seen before. He rushed over to the picture on the wall and removed it.

"Where did you get this? This is lady Jane Foster's work." Thor said excitedly.

"Oh, you know Jane." The woman looked excited. " Jane and I are close friends. She is an astrophysicist, but she has recently started looking into all aspects of the study of other worlds. Once she heard of my research she got in contact with me. We have spent many months in discussion of one of her projects. She asked for my help in discovering what was in a small sample of dirt she had obtained from a site, that apparently had some sort of freak storm. She asked if I could help discover what sort place it could have come from. The soil was mostly Earth based, but there was a tiny layer of what looked like an element we hadn't discovered yet on top of it. It was actually quite fascinating stuff. I was looking forward to going on a trip to see her after I had settled a little, but apparently she had been offered a spot Dr. Ryan Glosovich's research team. It is in a rather remote place, but it is quite exciting stuff." She babbled before she stopped herself quite suddenly. "Oh, I have been talking for far too long. Let us find you a place to sit."

She grabbed his arm and Thor allowed himself to be pushed from the room. The room that Thor entered he identified to be a game room of some sort.

"Just sit there for a second. We will be right back." Hermione told him quickly, smiling a little. Thor smiled back at her, though his heart wasn't really in it. His mind just kept flashing back to Loki and the death of the Son of Coul, he had been a good man. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even see her leave.

* * *

Harry was grinning a little as Hermione walked out of the living room. Something's never changed, Hermione was always going to be bossy.

"Harry! What were you thinking?" She threw a muffling charm over them as she started talking. "Do you know just how much trouble you could get in if the Ministry found out you were telling muggles about ley lines?"

"Are you going to tell the Ministry on me Hermione?" Harry asked with a grin.

"Well, no, but it could happen one of these days if you're not more careful." Hermione said with a huff. "Why did you tell him anyway?"

"'Mione, just what percentage of the muggle population is immune to glamours?" Harry asked calmly.

"About 0.042% of the population. It is one of the reasons why our wards rarely use glamours, and if they do it is on top of something else." She said with a very know-it-all tone.

"And exactly, why is it that we believe they can see through them?"

"Well, it is believed that they were probably descended from a squib, which gives them just enough magical gene to see through a glamour." She stated.

"So, it the guy has magic in him, I can't be punished for telling him about ley lines." Harry said with a roll of his eyes. "Besides the fact that this company is just starting to get its feet in the muggle world. Scientists study weirder things than ley lines all the time, and a big deal is never made of them."

"Harry, it is different when muggle scientists study magical phenomenon because usually nothing comes of it. However, if a magical scholar were to start telling the muggles about magical phenomenon things would be much different." Harry shrugged at her. The Ministry wouldn't do anything to him. He was too powerful politically and too well known in the muggle world. Hermione sighed, it seemed to be all she was capable of doing ever since he had showed her his pub. "Never mind that now. I will go and find a first aid kit. You go and see what is going on with him."

"What do you mean?" Hermione looked at him incredulously.

"Seriously, Harry? That man is talking and dressed like he just fell out of a Shakespearian play about pagan Gods. He also told us that he escaped from the thing which caused a giant crater to form in our backyard, which he called a  _cage_. Add to that, he is barely scratched and there is a hammer that he won't let us touch." She sighed again. "He also has something heavy on his mind, I can tell. Since you were the one that was always the best at making friends with the weirdos I suggest you go talk to him." Harry shrugged, the dirty man in weird clothes in the field wasn't even the strangest thing he had seen today.

"Fine." Harry knew that Hermione was right.

"Now go." Hermione waved him in the direction of the room. Harry sighed and opened it as Hermione rushed away.

He was greeted by the image of the dirty man with his head in his hands sitting on the sofa.

"Hey there. How are you?" He asked cautiously leaning against the door. The dirty man raised his head and stared at him in a way that he had been doing since they met. Harry didn't like the look much.

"You look like my brother."

"Um, thanks, I guess." Harry replied cautiously.

"He has killed many innocents and I fear that he is too far gone in his madness for me to help." The man looked despondent as he said this.

"Okay. I take it back, no thanks." Just great, Harry reminded someone of the murderous brother.

"I know not what to do." The man looked saddened and he stared at his hands again. There was a few minutes of silence before Harry started talking again.

"Okay, I think we got off to a bad start. My name is Harry Potter-Black. I live in New York City and I run a pub, currently." Harry didn't mention the rest of his titles. It seemed to throw people off. He held out his hand to shake. The man looked at it and him for a second before standing and grasping it. Harry had to hold back his wince as the man crushed his hand with his exuberant shake.

"My name is Thor, Son of Odin, God of Thunder. I protect this realm and that of Asgard." So apparently this guy had no problem with overwhelming someone. Harry almost dismissed him as crazy and the victim of a particularly bad concussion , but the sincerity in Thor's eyes was disarming.

"Okay, so assuming I believe you. What is the Norse God of Thunder doing just outside of New York City?" Harry asked with a smile, still not really believing him. Thor sat down again, looking saddened.

"I came back to Midgard in search of my brother, Loki, but I fear it is too late now. Loki's mind has been robbed of sanity all he searches for now is war. It has taken us too long to find him and I do not know what horrors he has endured while falling in the void between worlds." Thor looked so depressed. Harry walked over to him slowly, patting the buff arm.

"There, there. Its, um, not your fault big guy." Harry kept patting awkwardly. He was never really good at providing comfort and while he had gotten slightly better as a bartender, he didn't have anything to offer to Thor to help him drink his troubles away.

"If not mine, than whose is it. I have brought nothing, but pain to my brother. I have not treated him as well as I should have. I have not performed my brotherly duties to the fullest and he has turned into my enemy. An enemy I cannot fight." Thor said fiercely.

"Look, I know nothing about family seeing as pretty much whatever family I have tends to die. However, I can give you some advice." Harry shook his head at Thor. "We have a saying here on, um, I guess you would call it Midgard, he who makes his bed, must lie in it."

"I do not understand what sheets and bed cleaning have to do with Loki." He looked confused.

"No, you are looking at it too literally. It was Loki that came here, right? You didn't force him into it? You didn't make him kill those people?" Thor looked taken aback.

"I would never do such an ennoble thing to the mortals of Midgard." Thor stood in anger. Harry backed away quickly.

"I'm not trying to imply that you did. I am just trying to make you see that you didn't. Whatever your brother, Loki, has done. It is not because of you. He is the one that did those things. If he is the one that killed those people, so you say, then stop feeling the guilt of it. Most of all the saying means that whoever did the bad things is the one that has to pay for it. No one else is at fault because one person they knew decided to become a criminal." Harry told the towering blond man gently. He let his hand fall closer to his wand though, just in case. Thor seemed to be considering for a second before he fell back onto the couch.

"Loki has neatened his sleeping place and now he must slumber there." Thor nodded to himself. Harry shrugged, close enough. "Harry Potter-Black, you have given me much to think upon." Thor looked contemplative. Harry patted his shoulder.

"Just call me Harry, big guy."

"Thank you, Harry." Thor looked at him approvingly, apparently he liked what he saw because he nodded.

"Harry, I found the first aid kit." Hermione rushed into the room with a red metal case that looked as if it had fallen out of a time vortex to the 1800s. It was covered in dust and as Hermione blew on it she coughed at the dust cloud that came off of it.

Thor stood up though, looking out the window towards New York City. Harry followed to stare, but could see anything.

"Thank you, lady Hermione for your quest to give me aid, but it is no longer needed."

"What do you mean?" Hermione looked disappointed, Harry thought that was probably because she was sad she didn't get to play muggle doctor for awhile. She always liked it when she got to do things the muggle way.

"The drums of war have started to beat loudly. I no longer have time to rest. I am needed in this battle to stop my brother." Thor stood up straighter and walked from the room. Harry and Hermione scurried after him.

He looked like a man on quest, ready to save the damsel in distress. He walked out of the lab and turned back to the two following him. Thor grabbed Hermione's hand and kissed it.

"Thank you lady Hermione for your service this afternoon. It has provided me great joy to see someone with a passion for protecting your world like I have protecting mine. If I could just ask you for one more favor?" Thor looked a little sheepish, a little surprising to Harry, because he didn't think the man was the type.

"What is it?" She was a little flushed. Harry had almost forgotten that Hermione seemed to fall for tall foreign guys, Victor was the real proof of that. Hermione and him had found each other years after Ron and had a small relationship. They were still friends.

"Could you pass a message to the lady Jane Foster?" Thor bent over and whispered something into Hermione's ear that Harry couldn't hear. As Thor leaned away Hermione's blush grew ever redder.

"Of course I can." She was still blushing when Thor approached Harry.

"Thank you, Harry for your thoughts on my brother. I will do my best to follow your advice." Thor grabbed Harry's arm and shook it mightily. Harry tried to smile through the shake, but as soon as Thor let go Harry started rubbing the hand. Some people just didn't know their own strength.

"I must go now and I ask you not to follow." He looked towards New York City, Harry and Hermione looked with him. Thor turned back to them. "I would also suggest you stay out of the New City of York for the next few..." He looked puzzled for a minute. "Days, just to be certain. Be well, the both of you."

Thor nodded and turned walking briskly over the hill which he had come from. Harry and Hermione stared in shocked surprise. Suddenly the winds started picking up and the both looked up as a shadow came over them. A giant cloud formation was happening over their heads. They heard the crack of lightning and thunder. They both stared in shock as one of the largest lightning bolts they had ever seen came out of the sky and hit right beyond the hill where they knew Thor had gone.

They both turned to each other before immediately turning and running to the hill. They reached the apex just in time to see Thor push of the ground with the giant hammer in his hands and fly towards the city. They both stood in stunned silence as the clouds broke up over head.

"Harry, what in the bloody hell was that?" Hermione had just cursed.

Harry started giggling and then chuckling. Before he knew it he was lying on the hill laughing uncontrolably. Hermione had just cursed and a giant man in a cape had just flown off to save New York City from his brother Loki, Trickster God. Hermione cracked next.

They both lay there laughing until they couldn't anymore.


	7. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/sob with the Avengers or Harry Potter.
> 
> I just wanted to tell you that this chapter bounces around in time. You should be able to follow, but I'm telling you to be safe.

Harry picked his way through what used to be his apartment carefully. Magic could only do so much if the building was attacked. Which it had been, by flying slugs from space, at least that is what the TV had said. Harry carefully choose his way through the wreckage.

He groaned audibly when he stepped on a sticky substance. There went one of the new test beers for his pub, his last case. He shed a few inward tears at what was left of his bookcase. Most of the books probably made it, Hermione had made sure that they were coated in preservation magic. The entire apartment was a mess, covered in debris.

He made his way carefully over to kitchen bar counter and the flashing red light. There were many reasons why Harry had needed to come to his apartment, but the thing he most needed to do was check his messages. One of the things that really sucked about being a wizard was the fact that most of modern technology tended to kill itself if you got too close. Harry had given up on carrying around a cell phone a long time ago. However, there were still a few people that got in contact with him that way. One of whom he was eagerly awaiting a call from.

He scurried over a few downed chairs before he reached the counter. He leaned over and pressed the red button.

"Lord Potter-Black, we regret to inform you the Agent Phil Coulson has died in the recent attack on New York City. We have tried to get in touch with you before, as you are his emergency contact. On the chance that you hear this message you can reach us at..." Harry didn't hear the rest. He couldn't hear anything except for a buzzing in his ears.

There was a loud crash as all of the remaining glass in the apartment exploded.

* * *

Agent Phil Coulson rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"I am telling you that I have no idea where your agent might have gone." Phil said sternly to the two British agents in front of his desk. Anything to keep the headache at bay and to get rid of these two goons as quickly as possible.

"This all started when  _your_ agent stole him out of a mission." The man codenamed Wolf was almost growling at him and Phil could have sworn he saw a flash of gold in his eyes.

"If you remember correctly, it was after the mission was over and Hawkeye is one of the most responsible agents I have. He would not have done anything to compromise your agent." Phil lied through his teeth. He could see how Hawkeye was glaring at the two of them when he had his mission with Bolt. However, he didn't believe that Barton would actually go far enough to cause the agent any harm.

That meant that where ever the agent was, it couldn't be his fault. He sighed a little on the inside, never show weakness to potential enemies.

"Just find him." The one called King told him and grabbed Wolf by the arm, probably to hold him back.

"I have every available agent on it." He lied again as both of the men exited the room. Phil allowed himself to slump for a second before straightening and picking up the phone. It rung a few times before someone answered.

"You've reached the offices of Barton and Bow." There were explosions in the background. "I'm a little busy right now, but what can I do for you?" Barton never changed.

"I need to know where Bolt is." Phil told him.

"I don't know why you called me. I am currently halfway around the world getting shot at by crazy ninjas, at least I think that's what they are. Anyway, I didn't steal him so why would you call." Phil heard a swoosh of air and a far away cry.

"His handlers are worried about him and blaming you for his recent string of escapes and disappearances."

"His handlers are pieces of shit, and you can tell them that from me. They shouldn't be anywhere near the kid and if he ran away then I say good on him." Phil glared at the phone.

"That isn't our call to make. Tell me where you took the kid after that mission." Phil heard more explosions and shouts for a few minutes.

"Fine, if it will get you off my back. He's at this place I own. I'll give you directions."

Phil was in his car on the road two minutes later. He was still contemplating why Barton had given in so easily. He would have never told Phil where the kid was unless there was something wrong. Phil was on the road for ten minutes or so before he pulling into Runaway Bob's Wacky Adventure Land. He stared for a second before getting out of the car. It was the exact sort of place that Barton would buy, but Bolt didn't seem like the type of person to like a place like this.

He walked toward the building and noticed a light on through a door opening. He jumped over the fence deftly making as much noise as possible. Surprising an agent who was likely on high alert was the kind of mistake that you only made once.

The agent was staring at him as he opened the door. Bolt was standing in front of one of the rigged shooting games.

"Agent Coulson. That's your name right? Or would you prefer Lynchpin?" The agent waved him over.

"Coulson is fine." Phil walked over briskly. Once he got close enough the agent grabbed him and pulled him to one of the stations, handing him a gun. "What would you like me to do with this?"

"Shoot. I am trying to get good enough to beat Clint once he gets back from Canada." Phil looked at the boy sharply. Barton rarely gave anyone permission to use his full name, and even rarer did he lie to another agent about what he was really doing. He liked to brag too much to lie. The agent looked with bright eyes at Phil. "Come on, I'm sure I can beat you now."

Phil looked at the agent for a second before turning to the game and shooting for a few seconds. A bell hidden in the booth rang.

"Damn, you are really good." Bolt looked at him speculatively.

"Every S.H.I.E.L.D. agent must be proficient in firearm combat."

"Yeah, but that is way more than just proficient." The agent put down the game gun with a smile. "Well, I'm definitely not going to be able to beat that. Come on, then."

"Agent Bolt, I think we should head back to headquarters now." Phil said with a straight face.

"Don't be like that. Remus and Kings can wait for a little while longer. I don't have any missions so there is really no rush." The boy scurried to the exit, shutting off lights as he went. "Are you coming?"

Phil followed him carefully, he didn't know enough about the agent to be comfortable. He got outside in time to see the agent crawling up a ladder on the side of the building, heading towards the roof.

"Come on up." Bolt shouted down to him. Phil gave a little sigh, he didn't know where this was going, but he didn't like it. When Phil reached the rooftop he saw the wayward British agent standing on one of the railings on the edge of the building. His whole body tensed.

"Agent Bolt, I believe that it is time to head back now. If you would please come down from there." Phil approached slowly. There was very little chance that the boy could die from falling off the building, it was too short for that. He still didn't want to leave it to chance though. He had to push down a mini heart attach when the boy spun around on the rail, perfectly balance. This was a high trained agent, not a kid, he reminded himself. The agent laughed.

"Don't have a stroke or anything. I'm just having a little fun."

"I think you've had more than enough fun for the night. Your handlers are anxiously waiting for you." The boy paused looking at the sky.

"It is a nice night out isn't it?" Phil looked at the sky a little. He had never really been one to get caught up in views. Stars held no meaning for him beyond lights in a sky.

"I suppose so." Phil said gradually inching closer. He told himself that it was just worry for another agent, not anything else.

"My godfather was named after one of them." Bolt pointed to the sky and the stars. "The brightest one we can see actually, Sirius, the dog star." The boy said with sad look. His shoulders slumped a little and Phil could stop himself from asking.

"What happened to him?" The boy's eyes didn't leave the stars.

"He died. Protecting me, the stupidest move. He never thought things through." The kid said sadly. Phil inched closer.

"Why would you say that?" The boy stood still for a few more moments. His next question made Phil freeze.

"If you had to do it?" Bolt paused and with a deep breath he looked at Phil straight for the first time that night. "If you had to die to save the world, would you?"

"Without a moment's hesitation." Phil was giving his answer before he had even heard the full question. "If my death saved the world. I would give it. I have given my entire life to saving the world, death really isn't that much more. It is literally in my job description." Phil paused and truly looked at the conflicted boy. "Of course, that's not really the plan."

Bolt gave a cockeyed grin and Phil had to ignore for just a second the thought that that the soldier in front of him was a kid. He had previous experience with children soldiers, but it never got easier. He had been able to convince Fury and the Council that children were not the best option on the battlefield, but it seemed like other countries hadn't learned the lesson yet, he hoped they would soon.

"What if that was the plan?" Phil looked sharply at the boy.

"What do you mean?" Phil asked, not sure if he even wanted an answer.

"If it was planned out? If you knew in advance that the only possible way for you to save the world and all your friends was to die. What would you do then?" Phil swallowed down a bit of vomit that came up his throat and tried to remain professional.

"Why anyone would plan for their own death I don't know, but," Phil paused composing his thoughts. "I would hope that it wasn't the case. I don't want anyone to have to die for the sake of the world continuing. Unfortunately, we live in a world where that isn't the case. Good men have to sacrifice themselves everyday so that we can go on living our lives. On the flip side, even bad men have families, have people that care about them. That mourn them when they die. The world isn't a simple place. Unfortunately, it is most often the case that if there are two men willing to die for their opposing views, then one of them will." Phil continued to stare even after Harry had turned away. "That didn't answer the question though, did it? Or perhaps, were you asking the wrong question?"

The boy toppled off his rail onto the rooftop, still looking upward. Phil more gingerly sat next to him.

"I don't want to." Phil looked at the boy steadily.

"Don't want to what? Fight anymore? Die for a cause?" Phil asked. "You don't have to. You can leave at anytime. I'm sure that no one could really stop you if you wanted to. Agent Barton would be glad to help your escape if at any time you wanted it." And me, Phil said to himself. He would help as well. Anything to get the kid out of the clutches of those who would misuse him.

The boy started giggling. It quickly turned into laughing and then before Phil knew it the kid was laughing maniacally holding his stomach. Phil started scooting closer and it was then that he saw the tears that were streaming down the kids face silently.

Before he even knew what he was doing he grabbed onto the boy. He pulled Bolt close to himself pushing the boys face into his shoulder. He could feel the sobs shaking the boy, the wetness of the tears was flowing through his suit jacket.

They stayed like that for at least 30 minutes before the boy pulled away. He looked crumpled. More like the kid he was supposed to be than ever before. His eyes were red rimmed, clothing rumpled. His neckline was pulled down to his collarbone and Phil saw something that made his insides go cold. A scar ran across his collar bone. A type of very specific scar that Phil had seen many times before.

He reached toward Bolt with one hand.

"Have they been hurting you?" His voice was dry ice, rage filled his head. The boy looked at him surprised, taken aback by the sudden change in attitude. He looked down to what Phil was staring at. He blushed and then hurriedly fixed up his clothes covering the scar. "I know what type of instrument makes that kind of scar Agent Bolt. Tell me who caused it." Phil said, red almost covering his vision.

"It's not what you think. It wasn't Remus or Kings. They wouldn't hurt me, they have done all they can to protect me." The boy sighed and Phil tried to compose himself. "It's all complicated, nothing about this situation is easy, but they have done the best they can for me. The creature that gave me the scar won't last much longer if I have anything to say about it." He whispered something to himself that Phil couldn't exactly catch, but sounded a lot like, "neither will I."

Phil looked at the agent, the boy who was here a few moments ago was gone. Phil felt something loosen in his chest like he had just lost something.

"Agent Bolt, I don't like it when people keep things from me and I must tell you that I am very good at figuring out the truth." The boy smiled softly at Phil, but the light was gone from his eyes. Only the agent remained. Bolt stood up and brushed himself off.

"Come on, I think we've spent enough time on this roof. Don't you?" The boy started heading over to the ladder. Phil stood up quickly, every bit of gravel and dust from the roof shaking off quickly. There were definite advantages to being employed by S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Agent Bolt, I don't believe this conversation is over with." Coulson told him steadily. The boy turned back to him with a smile, a little of the light back in his green eyes.

"Please, call me Harry." Phil had to restrain himself from trying to hug the boy again. Chances are it would be seen as an overstep of boundaries. The boy had blocked himself off again and Phil was angry about that. He was well trained in interrogation techniques, well versed in seduction and infiltration, but he could think on only one thing to say in return.

"Call me Phil."

The boy's cockeyed grin grew larger and Phil saw the vestiges of the child still in there, but he was over the rooftop before anything else could be said.

* * *

Harry bumped his way through Rio de Janeiro without really playing attention. The streets were filled with crazily dressed, happily dancing people. The ringing of a phone caught his attention. He looked around a little and noticed he was approaching a street telephone. Harry stared at it suspiciously, scanning the crowd around him. There were plenty of people here, but no one really looked or felt dangerous. Still he approached the phone carefully.

As he stood in front of the ringing phone he looked around. There. Right across the street was a camera. He glared at it for a second before picking up the phone.

"Hello?" He asked gruffly.

"Harry, are you deliberately trying to make my life harder?" Harry's sudden grin over took his face. He stared into the camera across the street and waved stupidly. "Stop that, you're drawing attention." Harry ignored him.

"Phil! We haven't talked in the longest time. How are you? How is Clara doing?" He asked still grinning at the camera.

"Stop trying to divert my attention. This is about work, more specifically a train station in the south of Peru that has just recently been demolished, at just about the same time that you were going through. I don't really like coincidences Harry." Phil said gruffly back.

"You sound tired Phil you should really try to get some sleep. Or better yet, take a vacation it is doing wonders for me."

"Harry, stop. I need to know if something different happened there. If you met someone special." Phil sounded particularly bad. His superiors must really want some answers. Harry's gave an innocent shrug to the camera.

"I know of nothing. At least, according to the Statute." Harry smiled as Phil growled into the phone.

"I hate your people." Phil did not sound happy with him, but Harry didn't care. It really wasn't any of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s business.

"The feeling is mutual. Now, tell me how Clara is." Harry asked with a smile. The vacation really was doing wonders for him. Phil groaned a little, but answered.

"She is fine, about to have kittens actually. I already have good families picked out for most of them." Harry smiled at the camera and Phil on the other end. "You look good Harry." Harry's eyes grew dark.

"I have been trying." Harry shook away the bad thoughts, he was here to have fun. "Now, stop trying to weasel things out of me. Get some sleep too." There was a pause at the other end.

"I will. Stay safe Harry."

"Back at you Phil."

* * *

Coulson leaned back in his chair rather heavily. He almost shot up in shock when the phone in front of him rang.

"Agent Coulson." He answered deftly.

"Phil, don't be mad at me." Phil sat up a little in his chair.

"Why? What did you do?" Phil asked the voice on the phone.

"I might have told a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent named Natalie that you knew me." Phil was puzzled. He didn't know any field agents named Natalie. Then he felt a cold shiver go down his spine, well he did know one that used that alias.

He held up the phone between his shoulder and ear and turned on the computer quickly. He opened up Harry's file. Most of it was classified, but the 'On Going' section was available to everyone. There was a Level 2 threat on Harry because of a party that he had gone to that night.

A new S.H.I.E.L.D. acquisition, an assassin codenamed Black Widow, had been available and put on the case. Phil had met Natasha Romanoff once, that had been enough.

"Are you okay?" Phil asked even though the S.H.I.E.L.D. file put his status as stable. Harry laughed over the phone.

"Yeah, I'm fine. The goons were no problem. Especially with that woman helping. She was fierce." Harry said and Phil relaxed a little. Harry should have never met her. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to warn you about. Talk to you later?"

"Of course, Harry. Have a goodnight." Phil hung up the phone and leaned back once again. He only sat there for a few seconds before a knock came to the door. He groaned.

"Yes, Natasha you can come in." It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Harry moved around a piece of furniture in his new apartment. The television was turned onto the Stark news conference. Apparently a battle had gone down in the middle of Stark industries manufacturing buildings. He had bought the stock not too long ago and was waiting to see what Stark had to say. He was really barely paying attention though.

He had just moved his wingback chair into position when he heard it.

"...I am Iron Man." He fell into the chair and looked to the TV in shock. Apparently, the stock was a good buy.

He had barely been sitting for a few seconds when the phone started ringing. Harry stood with a smile and walked over to the counter. The phone was one of the first things he had gotten installed.

"Hello, Harry here."

"I hate Tony Stark." Harry started laughing. Of course, that's where Phil would be.

"Oh really?" Harry asked with a smile when he had contained his laughter.

"That man doesn't have the slightest clue just how hard it is to make a perfect alibi. All of the people I had to contact. The papers I had to forge. It is an incredible amount of work. I even gave him note cards so he couldn't possibly screw it up. I hate that man."

"I don't think you are supposed to be telling me this."

"The cats out of the bag now. There is really nothing else we can do about it. Stupid man." Harry could tell that Phil was rubbing his eyes just from the tone of his voice.

"There, there. I'm sure he isn't that bad."

"No, he is. He definitely is." Harry laughed some more.

"You poor man. To reward you for your constitution to put up with him I will let you try some of my new product early." Harry told the man.

"What is it this time? Don't you have enough on your hands running a Charity?" Phil asked a little happier.

"It's a type of alcohol that I have just made safe for muggle consumption. You will love it. The charity is doing fine, thanks for asking." Harry told him with a smile.

"Fine, I'll see you soon." Harry smiled. Whenever Phil said that he usually commandeered a jet.

"Stay safe, Phil." Harry hung up after Phil and took out his wand. There was a certain quaintness to unpacking the muggle way, but he wanted to be prepared for when Phil showed up.

He smiled as he waved his wand.

* * *

Coulson groaned.

"Watch what you are doing with that. It is very delicate equipment and if you break it I will sent all of the angry scientists flocking in your direction." He told off a junior agent who was moving a little too quickly with the equipment.

The Asgardians had left Earth and in their wake Coulson had a wave of hard and fast work to do. The Director wanted answers, but most of all he wanted a way to protect Earth from a new threat. Eric Selvig had been taken by the Director himself for some new project that was all very hush-hush.

He groaned again and turned away from the Junior Agents, just watching incompetence was making him get heart burn. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he left the room with a sigh. Saved by the phone.

"Agent Coulson." The way he always answered his phone.

"You will never guess who I have in my pub right now!" Harry was on the other end, apparently very excited. Phil smiled.

"I still don't understand why you opened that thing. You are a billionaire, right? Don't you have better things to do?"

"I like it. Nothing more than that. That's not why I called though. You will love this. Guess who just saved me from getting mugged." Phil sat up.

"You were mugged." Harry sighed.

"No. My training hasn't degraded enough for me to be beat up by a couple of street goons. That's not the point. Someone tried to act the hero and save me. Guess who." Harry was apparently very excited. "I'll give you a clue. I gave you some of his trading cards for your birthday."

Phil's eyes widened.

"No!"

"Yep, it is pretty fantastic. What are you up to?" Phil glanced outside to the screens of electromagnetic read outs and fluctuations.

"Nothing much. How is the Captain?"

"He looks a little lost, but I think I can get him over that." Harry paused for a second. "By the way, could you pick up the two unconscious goons that are lying in an alley in Brooklyn." Harry quickly gave him the address.

"I'm on it. Have fun with the Captain." Phil said with a smile.

"Oh, I will. Have fun in the Land of Enchantment. That's what they call it right?" Harry asked.

"Something like that. I will. Stay safe. I'm expecting some of your firewhiskey once I get into town."

"You know I always have a bottle saved for you. Talk to you later."

"I expect a full play-by-play." Phil said with a smile. "Stay safe."

"I will. You too." Harry hung up and Phil put down his phone.

Back to the real world of his job and protecting the Earth from alien gods. He rubbed his eyes again. He was getting too old for this job.

* * *

Harry knelt in the broken glass and debris in what was left of his apartment. He didn't feel the broken wood digging into his knees. He didn't feel the tears streaming down his face. He didn't feel his shivering body.

He couldn't feel anything.

"End of most recent message. Now playing old messages." Harry looked up at the counter again. BEEP.

"Harry." The voice was gruff and worn, but unmistakable. Phil. "I don't think I'll be able to make it to dinner this week. Something has come up." Harry heard soft sounds of guns in the background. "I just wanted to call and tell you not to worry."

There was silence for a few seconds and Harry scrambled to the recorder. That couldn't be it.

"Take care of yourself, kid." Silence again. "I love you."


	8. Backup S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/yell with or at the Avengers or Harry Potter.

Fury paused his typing. Something was happening. The air felt thicker around his desk, the temperature was dropping. Maybe something was wrong with the air conditioning units. Which was really what he didn't need right now. The entire operation had been moved from the helicarrier due to the repairs happening. Their last ground headquarters was currently a crater and a burial ground thanks to an alien popping through a portal they didn't know was a portal. There was too much happening for the backup to the backup headquarters to be acting up as well.

"Hill, what is going on with the temperature." Fury spoke into the comm unit.

"I'm sorry, sir?" 

"The temperature Agent Hill. It is much colder than regulation in here." He looked at the window which was frosting up. That shouldn't be happening. He didn't need to hear Agent Hill's reply, he already knew what was happening.

"Sir? The temperature is just fine out here."

Fury ignored it and stood up. There was only one man he knew of that could be doing this, and it wasn't that unlikely that he had found Fury here.

The door swung open with a bang, crashing against the wall. At the same moment, his computer screen broke in half and the bulletproof glass window cracked.

"Lord Potter-Black, what a pleasure to meet you at last." Fury stood calmly in front of the man.

He knew plenty of Lord Harry Potter-Black, after all he had been the one to agree to let the kid into the program. He had followed the war in the British Wizarding World closely and knew well just who the kid was before he had accepted him. It was a great opportunity for S.H.I.E.L.D. to gain knowledge on a sect of the society that rarely had interactions with the normal world. However, whenever interactions did happen it was the normal side that was devastated.

The last war of the Wizarding World had leeched into the normal population and it made Fury's skin crawl at just how unprepared they were to deal with the threat. Normal soldiers cannot stand strong against an enemy that can literally bend physicals to his will. What soldier would stand still when the person next to him turned into a frog? It was illogical and wrong on too many levels.

So, the decision to include the Wizarding World's child hero into the world of S.H.I.E.L.D. had been easy. The knowledge that they could gain seemed to outweigh any potential problems that the boy could cause.

This was before he had sent the child on any missions though. Before the child wormed his way into the heart of Fury's most senior agents.

The knowledge that they gained from the interactions with Agent Bolt had been invaluable, but compromising Agent Coulson in the process had been the biggest mistake. Mostly because it lead to today. With a highly trained, unknowingly powerful individual storming into his office, like he was about to declare war.

"Don't give me that shit,  _Director_." The man's hair was almost standing straight up. Fury had to wonder if he did it on purpose, or if the laws of gravity were just negated when the man got angry. "You know exactly why we have never met before today. Your precious council thought I would compromise you if ever we were to meet. They knew just about magic to never let an unfamiliar wizard get close enough to cast a spell on anyone in charge."

"I don't think we have to worry about that now. Do we?" Fury pressed a button under the desk.

He didn't believe that the knight would go far enough to attack him, but it was best to be prepared just in case. The man in front of him growled and the bulletproof window's crack grew larger.

"How could you let this happen,  _Director_? How could you, of all people, let him die?" His voice cracked at the end of the sentence. Fury got the thought, that maybe he was just hanging on. He could use this.

"Lord Potter-Black, Agent Coulson died a good..."

"DON'T YOU SAY THAT. Don't you dare say that. He shouldn't be dead. He shouldn't have even been close to this battle. He should be walking around right now making snarky comments and driving Tony Stark insane. He should have retired in a year and joined me in New York. He should have settled down with a nice girl and made fifteen little Coulsons. He should have lived to the ripe old age of 200 and died surrounded by family and smiling." The man yelled at Fury, his face full of grief. "Agent Coulson shouldn't be  _dead._ Not yet."

"The world doesn't work that way Lord Potter-Black. You know that better than most." Fury sat down in his chair with a thump. He kept his eye on the young man whose entire figure seemed to be going dark at the edges as if even his shadow wanted in on the fight. His eyes had hardened.

Fury wasn't scared, though he had the vague impression he should be. He had been around too many Agents and gods and Hulks for one tiny wizard to make any sort of impression on him.

"You are a despicable man. Have you no heart? No feelings for your colleague?" The man was distraught, but Fury couldn't let that comment stand.

"Lord Potter, you forget yourself! I've worked by that man since you were still pooping your pants and peeing on the bed. The man was a great soldier and a even better agent. He was one of the best men I have ever known and I trusted him with more than my life. I trusted him through countless wars and missions. He is the man that everyone on this base would turn to for advice and leadership. He was a rock to many, including yourself, isn't that correct? The one man who could drag you out of your isolation after the defeat of your enemy and the death of your best friend. You do him a dishonor by saying his death was not worth it. That it didn't mean anything." Fury glared at him with one good eye."His death was great and honorable. He died for his beliefs, for his trust in men, for the idea that against all odds a small group of people against a larger deadly force can win. I belittle his sacrifice when I say that he saved the world. He did so much more. That man is the best Agent I have ever known and right now we would all me living under the rule of a megalomaniac if it wasn't for him. Do not talk to me about  _feelings,_  Lord Potter-Black. I know better than anyone just what the world lost when that man died." Fury told him fiercely. "I lost my one good eye, Lord Potter-Black. That is not something that you can regain so easily." He leaned back in his chair a little. It was warmer in his office than before. "Now will you seat down and we can discuss this like men?"

Potter-Black's black straightened as he sat.

"What else is there that need be said?" He tone was hoarse, but Fury accounted that to the grief.

"The world has changed Lord Potter-Black. Right under our noses. I'm not too happy about it. Aliens with god-complexes think that we are ants to be squashed. I do not think they are right." Fury looked at the demolished computer screen, he would have to get that fixed. "I think we need ever advantage that we can get." He stared at the man straight in the eye. "And I think you are one."

Lord Potter-Black bristled.

"If you really think this is the best time for a recruitment drive I would like to tell you, you are out of your mind." The man almost hissed at him.

"There is no better time, than now. Live in the present, not the past or future. Right now, a powerful, well trained, trusted individual is sitting in front of me and the world is in the shitter. Can you really tell me that there will be a better time?" Fury asked. The man almost growled.

"Yes." He glared furiously. "Not when I am in here mourning the death of one of the few friends I had left. Not when I can barely stand to look at the face of the man who let it happen." Fury shruggled.

"The offer still stands. We need men like you. Now more than ever. The world is on the brink Lord Potter and you just intend to let it fall."

"I intend to do  _nothing_ , Director Fury. Just like I have been for the last ten years. I haven't asked for your protection or help. I haven't done anything that could be construed as getting back in the game. I am in the parking lot selling drinks. I am nowhere close to the field. Despite what people like you would like to think." He sighed. "You are the one that sent S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to protect and spy on me Director. I let it go because, frankly, I want you to be prepared if another Wizarding War gets out of hand. This though," He waved an arm at the headquarters. "This I can't do. You ask too much."

Potter-Black stood up with a swirl. Despite claiming to be out of the game for 10 years, his skills and grace didn't seem to be a wink degraded.

"Lord Potter-Black. There is a case of Agent Coulson's things being kept by the front desk. If you pass that on the way out you could ask for it." He turned back to the desk, pressing the 'all clear' button. Potter-Black stopped in the doorway.

"Is it taken care of?" The voice was soft, but hard.

"I don't have the slightest idea what you mean." Fury said with an innocent tone. He couldn't let this man know anything about who killed Coulson. Potter-Black turned around sharply.

"Don't give me that crap Fury. I deserve more than that and you know it." Fury paused and looked at the man, he wouldn't leave without an answer. So what to tell him?

"He has been taken care of, trust me." Potter-Black nodded and with a swish and click, he was gone.

Fury leaned back and laced his fingers together. There was nothing left to do, but wait.

* * *

Harry didn't trust that man. Not with anything, certainly not with the life of anyone. Not anymore. Not after Phil. Just the thought of his name sent a wave of sadness crashing through Harry.

He didn't sweep by the desk to pick up Coulson's things. Mostly because Coulson never kept anything personal in his office or locker. Though also because Fury had mostly likely only told him that so he could keep track of where Harry went in the building.

Harry didn't delude himself. He couldn't case the building without proper legwork first. This trip had been purely because of emotional rush. He hadn't thought of anything but the anger that had coursed through his veins once he heard that Phil had died. What sort of person would leave that as a phone message? He didn't care about that right now though.

With a twist and an almost soundless 'pop' Harry was gone.

He had chosen a safe house in Bermuda for this particular mission. S.H.I.E.L.D.s servers were well protected and they would know of any changes made to them within a milisecond. However, he had many things pulling in his favor. Magic being the biggest, but it never hurt to put a few thousand miles between you and the nearest command base. He had also chosen the Bermuda base for its small size. The house's main purpose was a vacation residence, so it wouldn't hurt him any if the house had to be lost.

His entrance turned all of the lights in the house on. The computer quickly followed. He had another place to stop after this, but it should be quick and then the real mission would begin. He sat in front of the computer gingerly, on the edge of his seat. This was not a trick that he could relax on, it required his full concentration at all times. He laid his hand on the router. His magic was almost doing stretches, readying itself for the coming job.

A few deep breaths in and out. He concentrated on drawing his magic into himself. He would be almost completely cut off from external sensing for awhile.

His eyes snapped open. He was ready to go.

The magic moved quickly and piercingly. Stretching through cables, bouncing through stations, across the sea bed floor. It knew what it was looking for.

The interesting thing about magic in computers is just how much it spread. When used in the correct subtle way magic and electricity worked in union. They could join in a bond stronger than others.

Here is another interesting fact about the way a wizard can be found. The Point Me spell was one of the greatest advances in magical search and rescue, but it had a fault. The Point Me spell could only find the magical essence of someone or something. Which meant, it couldn't find muggles no matter how hard it tried.

At a point in time, it also couldn't find Voldemort. This was because he had literally split his soul apart, his magical essence with it. So when someone used a Point Me spell, it would get confused because it wanted to point in too many directions. This wasn't a problem for Voldemort though, because once you get in tuned enough with your magic, you could find it anywhere. If he only thought to search for his lost pieces of soul they entire war might have ended differently.

For Harry however, these two things had completely separate meanings. It meant that he could find any object that he had cast a spell on. No matter how far away, his magic always tried to reach for itself. This was a great help when S.H.I.E.L.D. had decided to copy his classified files into their records. Files that he himself had spelled invisible to anyone without prior knowledge of what was on them.

This gave Harry something, that no one else in the entire world had. A direct line into the database of S.H.I.E.L.D. He smiled a little at the thought of all the computer security personnel who would probably be having nervous breakdowns right now. They hadn't missed anything and yet someone had created a direct link into their servers and was getting information.

Harry's eyes snapped open. His classified file was on the screen, but not what he needed right now. He moved his mouse with the hand not on the router, he needed to keep the connection. He had to work fast, magic stretched over that great of a distance could weaken even the most powerful.

"Gotcha." He clicked on the link to Phil's file. The DECEASED tag that was stamped on it made Harry's heart clench. He's eyes steeled, he had to get through this.

His mouse moved to a clip that was recently attached to the file.

His eyes widened has he saw an image of a room with what looked like a circular cage area in the middle. Men were moving across the screen now. His eyes widened some more when he caught sight of a familiar stranger, Thor. What was he doing there?

The man who escaped the cage was mostly turned from the camera, but Harry could see black hair, an outfit made of what looked to be leather, and a staff. His heart clenched again when Phil appeared, the gun in his hands too big.

"NO!" He couldn't help the cry that came from his lips as the staff entered the back of Phil. Cowardly.

He couldn't keep his eyes off of Phil. He barely noticed the cage being released to the sky. The gun flashed and the staff holding man flew through a wall. Harry smiled a watery smile, good old Phil. Never one to back down from a fight.

The clip ended and Harry almost started crying again, but he contained himself. He was an agent on a mission and he had to know exactly who this character was that had taken Phil from him.

He moved quickly away from the clip, he didn't have much time. No doubt the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel were catching up to him. He flipped through a few files until he found the one he wanted, Thor.

He skimmed over the file, not really paying much attention until he reached the part about his brother. Loki. Harry tilted his head and clicked on the name in a bit of spontaneity.

The picture was obviously taken from the cage that Harry had seen in the previous clip, but it was unmistakable.

"Found you." He looked through the rest of the information quickly, committing it to memory. Apparently, the criminal who had destroyed most of Manhattan was giving a first class ticket back to his home world. He was scheduled to leave in about a week. "And without even saying goodbye. How rude."

Harry smiled and stepped away from the computer he had all he needed for now. The connection blinked away. He waved his wand and the entire computer set up turned into a chess set. That ought to keep them running in circles for a little while.

He turned and with a 'pop' he was standing in his manor's lobby. He walked quickly. He was on a mission, no time to waste. He stalked down to the basement and moved a rug on the floor revealing a trapdoor. He opened it and climbed on the ladder. He slid his way down and as his feet touched the bottom the lights in the room lit up.

Walls were covered in different weapons, anything that had interested him. Prototypes and classics. He didn't pay much attention to them. This was a stealth mission, in and out, no big guns required. He went to the back wall and a too innocent looking chest.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good." The pass code was a classic and one that the Weasley twins demanded every time they made something to go into the box.

The twins had lost a little of their spark after Ron died. They still ran their store and became excellent businessmen in addition to their prankster status. However, their innocence was lost and when Harry suggested making magical weapons, they had been interested. The Weasley twins were now the secret manufactures of the Wizarding Worlds new breed of warfare. Mixing muggle technology with magic seemed to be extremely deadly in ways that only the twins that thought of. Which also meant that as their benefactor Harry got samples of all their new merchandise, even the stuff that they didn't sell because it was too dangerous.

He slipped out the tool belt and some extras. He turned to his wall of armor and picked out one of his black basilisk's skins. Durable with added stealth magic for quietness and unnoticeability. He slipped it on quickly and carefully, buckling the tool belt on top. He added an endless paunch of throwing darts and a couple of guns. He had no intention to kill anyone, but if he had to make a quick escape.

He double checked and tripled checked that he had what he needed. It was time to go.

With a turn of his heel and a 'pop' Harry found himself in a empty hallway with flashing red lights and a blaring alarm bell. He tensed, they couldn't have found him yet. He heard footsteps coming and moved to the side of the hallway.

"I TOLD YOU ALREADY. TURN THE DAMN THINGS OFF. THERE ISN'T A REAL ATTACK." The man passing by seemed to be yelling into his comm unit. "NO, IT WAS JUST A VIRIUS THAT THE COMPUTER GEEKS MISSED. THERE IS NO NEED FOR FULL DEPLOYMENT." The man paused listening to something. "HOW SHOULD I KNOW? ASK THEM IF YOU ARE SO CURIOUS." Harry nodded with relief as the man passed by. A few moments later the alarm went off.

Harry didn't stay still any longer, moving underneath an air vent he followed it until he reached an exhaust vent. With a jump and a grab Harry worked his way into the vent system. It was a trick that Clint had taught him years ago as a way to escape Remus and Kingsley. He probably hadn't imagined it would be used to help Harry kidnap an international war criminal from the middle of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s securest cells.

He moved silently through the vents, making his way through off of the map in his head. He was still as flexible as he remembered and unfortunately hadn't grown that much.

It was not even ten minutes later that found him outside of the cell block. The vents didn't go inside, it had its own closed unit, to help prevent escapes. The two guards that stood outside the door were still. Showing no signs that they had even reacted when the alarm had gone off. He pulled one of the Weasley twin's staples from his tool belt. Thank Merlin for Peruvian Darkness Powder.

He a quick toss through one of the vents the hallway turned black.

"Hey? Unit Two have the lights gone off in yo...ack" That was as far as the second guard got until Harry had him on the ground unconscious. He laid the man down carefully next to his partner. They would both be fine.

He turned to the cell down with a glare. He pulled out his wand and flicked sharply. The heavily platted steel door crumpled into itself as it flew forcefully into the room beyond, hitting the wall with a clank.

Harry made his way inside. Disarming a guard hiding to the side of the door, trying to ambush him. He spun quickly and kicked the head of the guard sneaking up behind him.

"INTRUDE...cell bl..." The junior guard fell unconscious in front of Harry. Harry didn't care though, he stepped over the body. Only one thought in mind.

He turned in front of the fourth cell room window. The man inside had lanky black hair falling in front of his face. Shackles on his wrists prevented him from moving. Truly and utterly defeated. Harry felt no pity for this man, only ice cold rage. With a twist of his wrist the cell block door slammed away. The creature inside looked up in surprise.

Harry stepped inside the cell, showing himself to the prisoner.

"Hello, Loki. You'd better come with me. I think we have a lot to talk about."


	9. Cell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/plot the destruction of the world with the Avenger's or Harry Potter.

Loki awoke in a cell. He knew this even before he opened his eyes. He had been in enough cells in his lifetime to know the feel of one. It was different from the last one he was in. Colder perhaps, but maybe that was the unknown quality sneaking up on him. His eyes snapped open to the view of a grey ceiling. Fairly common for cells. Not much to look at.

He moved his body around a bit, wriggling to see if he was tied down at all. It surprisesd him to find that mostly he wasn't. Just a single chain attached to a wall. The shackles were still on his wrists attached to the chain. He almost snarled at the sight of them. A present from Thor and Odin, to hold back his magic. Thor had even implied that there was a matching gag to go with. Loki couldn't keep the disgust off of his face. Though, if the shackles and chain were the only thing holding him back, it would be easy to escape.

Not that it wouldn't have been easy anyway. Tiny mortal ape brains didn't think that he could have escaped anytime he wished. They were foolish, something Loki was all too keen to take advantage off.

Even his brother Thor had fallen for his trick to get on board of their flying headquarters. Really, did none of them think it odd that he had waited around for them to finish their childish squabble and recapture him? His brother was always falling for the same tricks.

Even after all was said and done they were still arrogant. The green terror had beaten him, but he was an Asgardian, no mere mortal could keep him down for that long. Yet, he had stayed long enough in the apartment for them to capture him. Did they really believe him so weak?

The cell door creaked open.

"I see you are awake." The voice had an accent different from that of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that had kept him before. Maybe he could use this new character to his advantage.

Loki sat up slowly playing off his remaining injuries.

"Thank you for getting me out of there. I didn't know what they were planning on doing next." Loki said keeping his voice simpering and eyes down. Humans had weak hearts for such ideas as torture, something he could play.

"Nice try, but not good enough. I know exactly what sort of injuries are caused by torture and you carry none of them. Not that I don't doubt Fury would have fallen back on those methods if it suited him to." Loki straightened on his bed. It was a long shot anyway.

The man in front of him was shorter than any other that Loki had seen. His black hair was long and eyes were a harsh green. Loki looked into those eyes deeply, they reminded him of something. He shook his head of the thought.

"Very well, who are you?" Loki asked placing his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. The shackles wouldn't let his hands separate too much anyway.

He studied the man in front of him. Harsh lines covered by loose clothing. Loki spotted the weapons on his figure easily, the most interesting of which, a long stick like object clasped to his forearm. The clothing was black, good for hiding blood stains. His hands looked rough from what Loki could see. Weapon calluses from practice. Loki didn't tense, he knew what being a prisoner meant. He had been one enough times to know.

"An interested party." The man said, looking at Loki just as harshly. Loki wanted to stand and crush the man before him, but a simple chain attached him to the bed.

"Interested in what?"

"You, of course. Why else would you be here?" The man answered, with a weird look in his eye.

"So, you are the one that stole me from S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm sure they are not too happy about that." Loki said, testing the waters.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but they aren't too happy about much of anything." The man said leaning against a wall.

"So then, what have you brought me here for? Information? Advanced weapons? A new ally? A lesson in intimidation, because you clearly need one?" Loki asked snidely, still looking at the man. He stared at the cell a little more. There was no viewing window, which meant one of two things. Either the organization that kidnapped him had advanced enough technology not to need one. Or the man in front of him was working alone. The grin that looked more like an animal baring its teeth told Loki which one it was.

"You misunderstand. You are here because you killed someone. Someone very dear to me." Loki felt a chill at those words, but probably because the temperature in the room had dropped sharply.

"You'll have to be more specific." Loki told the man calmly. The man bared his teeth to Loki again.

"I think I have something better in mind. Just to jog your memory." The man twisted his wrist in a way and the long thin object popped into his hand. It was a stick. Though, Loki barely got a glimpse before the man waved it at him and everything went dark.

The first thing Loki felt was a hit to the chest, it felt like it was caving in...or no, it was his back banging against the wall...rocks falling on him...disintegration...hit...

blood everywhere...metal instrument scraping out his eye, while people fled the museum...

hit...death...being stabbed through the chest...

blood loss...

explosion...

explosion...stab in the...

so much death.

Loki gasped and sat up on the cell bed. He was sweating, everything ached. His muscles remembered a pain that they had never endured. He turned his body, confused at what happened.

"What was that?" Loki snarled at the unassuming man, glaring at him. He rubbed his chest slightly with one hand, but resisted the urge to rub his eye.

"Did you really think your people are the only beings in the universe that are capable of magic?" The man twirled a wooden stick in his hand. A focusing tool, something that could get Loki out of these cursed cuffs. "That was a little taste of mine. You got to feel how every person you killed in the past few days died." He leaned against the wall casually, too calm. "You were screaming for almost two hours, that's a lot isn't it?"

Loki glares and stops rubbing his chest. He cannot appear weak in front of this man. Though, he silently makes a note to himself to never die by disintegration, it hurt the most. He shakes off the rest of his aches, the pain was nothing compared to what it could be. Despite the fact that while it was happening it was very painful, it just didn't stick around like a physical injury would. He hardens his mind, he cannot lose to this man.

"So, does the tiny mortal wish to play mind games?" Loki asks calmly. Sitting up straight in the bed. He feels a slight difference to the feel of the cuffs. Maybe the distance away from Thor is weakening them.

"No. That is not why you are here." The man shakes his head, but looks at Loki straight in the eye. "Unless, that is what you wish to do?"

"You do not know what folly it is to ask that. You will bring destruction to yourself." Loki has already vowed this after the retribution curse that was cast on him. He will bring this man to his knees if given enough time. "What do you wish from me? Retribution, for your dearly departed?" He asks again, needing to know.

The man grins a little and shakes his head, but says quiet.

"So, you do not wish to tell me?" Loki asks surprised. Everyone wanted something from him, he could find out what this man wanted too, but really he didn't have the time. Loki needed to get out of this cell and back to the circus act and his moron brother. So now it was time for a different tactic. The chain connected Loki to the bed had enough slack in it for an attack if he could get the man close enough. The man wasn't saying anything just staring in that weird way of his, so Loki had to start the confrontation.

"It really was a pleasure killing all of those people. Good riddance. You people breed on this planet like rabbits. The more I can get rid of the better." The man twitched, but didn't say anything. Time to get personal. "Even your so called heroes are weak. Useless creatures all squabbling with each other like children."

"Caught you didn't they? Must be pretty smart children." Loki smiled, he got him talking back.

"Smart children, maybe, but still children. How long do you think they will last? As teams go, one at each other's throats does not a good one make. Even this time they only got their act together once someone they all knew was killed." The man twitched. Gotcha. "Will their future enemies have to do the same just to get their cooperation? That S.H.I.E.L.D. agent too, the one that I stabbed, such a weakling. What was his name again?" Loki tapped his chin to mime thinking. "Coldheart, or no, Coulson, right?" The mans twitch made Loki smile. "Such an accommodating minion Agent Barton was." The man's eyes widened.

"What did you do to Clint?" The man asked taking a step away from his wall, closer to Loki.

"Oh, you mean you don't know?" He could use this. "I captured him, turned him to my side. Such a weak will some humans have. He was good for a few things though, if you catch my meaning. Though, watching him kill his friends was certainly fun. No control that one. The pleasure that one can gain from someone else's pain, Schadenfreude, I believe the lovely Germans call it."

"Stop it. Stop talking." The man stepped closer and Loki contained his grin. He got a grip on the chain behind his back, just a little closer.

"It felt good stabbing that Agent and it felt better knowing it was his own subordinate that caused his destruction. As his blood ran to the ground I felt better knowing I had removed such a pustule of waste from the world."

The man rushed toward Loki, the stick forgotten. His hand was raised to punch the man, but Loki didn't let him get close. With a speed only an Asgardian could have Loki spun the man around, the chain wrapped around his throat. Loki braced the man.

"Pleasure to meet you. Nothing personal." Loki twisted and felt a rush of satisfaction at the cracks that came from the man's neck.

Loki smiled as he let the man's body fall to the ground, dead. He turned back to the man on the wall. He twisted the chain around his wrists and pulled. His strength was many times that of a human, which must have been why the chain moved from the wall so easily.

Loki pulled the chain from his wrist shackles and made his way to the door. He opened it and felt the rush of new air entering the room. He stepped out of the room into the indistinct hallway.

"You went for the easy kill. Not what I expected you to do." Loki turned around surprised. He man was sitting on the cell bed, the body gone from the floor.

Loki opened his eyes, he was back sitting on the cell bed. The man across the room, leaning against the wall. The chain was on his wrists attached to the wall, there was no slack. The cell door was closed, grey walls surrounded the room.

"What? I thought you wanted to play mind games?" The man gave a vicious smile.

"You are not a mortal. No human on Midgard could do what you just did to me. Who are you and where are you from?" Loki snared. He was mad. He wanted out of this dull grey room, no, he wanted to paint it red in this man's blood. He glared more when the man kept smiling at him.

"You are right on one count at least. No one else on this planet can do what I just did to you. You just happen to be unfortunate enough to catch my attention. See, I have a certain skill set that I learned through experience. See I have only met one person in the world who was talented in the mind arts. He is the one that gave me these scars." The man lifted up his shirt showing Loki his scarred body. Loki felt a brief moment of illness. Asgardian's could not get scars like that in battle and all healed too quickly for most any wounds they got to stick. It was strange knowing that there were humans on earth that carried all of the scars of their battles and his man was covered in scars. "I was in his company for such a long time that eventually learned from what he did to me. See I was kind in what I did to you at least."

"That was no kindness." Loki tried to get back some of his rage, to remember that this man had just trespassed into his mind. A place that no other should venture.

"Was I not? Do you know what it is like to have your mind ripped apart while you watch unable to do anything. To have everything taken from you, by a man roughly penetrating your mind and scrapping out all that he wanted. To have him do it over, and over, and over. Constantly abusing your mind while your body was being demolished." The man had gotten close to Loki during his speak. Too close. Loki couldn't do anything about it. The chain was too strong now and there was no leverage. "Believe me when I said that what I did to you was a kindness, to what I could have done; what part of me still wants to do."

" _What_ do you  _want_?" Loki snarled at the man again.

The man backed away quickly.

"You will find out soon enough." The man turned his back to Loki and exited the room.

Loki's lip curled involuntarily. That man would kneel before him.

* * *

Harry shut the door behind him and let out a sigh. He rubbed his eyes and crashed against a comfortable couch that was nearby. Why was he doing this again? Why was he spending time trying to talk to a god of lies and tricks? Phil's face popped into his head and he had to push back tears.

There was something different about Loki. Harry had met a lot of villains in his time. Dark wizards, psychopaths, serial murders, rapists, if you could name it Harry had probably met one. He had a tendency to draw crazy to him. There was something not right about Loki though. Harry couldn't quite put him in the psychopath category because despite what he said, Harry just couldn't see enough crazy. He certainly saw enough rage for someone to try to destroy a world, but it was covering something else. Something that Harry had enough experience with to recognize as grief. Loki was grieving for something and there were too many layers for Harry to figure out what.

Harry knew too many murderers, too many assassins to not be okay with death. Even the morally questionable deaths he could understand. He was grieving Phil that much was true, but Phil wouldn't have wanted revenge. Harry remembered well the first real conversation he had with the man. Phil was willing to give up his life to protect the world, Harry even suspected that was the way he wanted to go out, and to all appearances it seemed to be exactly what he did. So why did he have Phil's killer locked up in a cell?

Harry rubbed his eyes some more. The whole operation had pretty much been spur of the moment. His rage at Fury, himself, and even Phil to a certain extent drew him to look for revenge. The easiest outlet for that was the obvious one, his killer. It had been after he had gotten Loki locked up and safe that he cooled down enough to realize what he was doing. He just kept hearing Phil's voice inside of his head, "...even bad men have families, have people that care about them. That mourn them when they die." Which was immediately followed by the pounding of Thor's, "I came back to Midgard in search of my brother, Loki, but I fear it is too late now." Thor cared for his brother, deeply. If Harry killed him now revenge would be taken, but perhaps not justice.

So, with all that going through his head he had decided to wait for Loki to wake up before passing judgment. It hadn't helped that Loki awake was way more confusing than Loki unconscious. He had tried to figure out what sort killer he was when he cast the curse. It also helped ease the bit in his heart that begged him to hurt the man, badly.

Despite what Harry had told the Asgardian, two hours for that curse was an incredibly short time. Which meant, that while Loki had killed a great many people they were always quick deaths. Harry tried to figure out what that meant.

He hated riffling through another's mind, despite the fact that he was very good at it. It was another unwanted talent that Harry had gotten from the war and now it made him one of the most accomplished legilimens and occlumens in the world. It was a skill set he could do without, but it he had thought it might help him figure out Loki. He had told Loki the truth that he could have just scrapped out what he wanted from Loki's brain, but minds are much more complicated that he let on.

Harry didn't have the stomach to do that to someone's mind. You left wounds there that couldn't heal and Loki already had too much rage corrupting his mind for a more substantial action. So he had decided to go for the lesser option and see what Loki would do to him, if he got free. It didn't make him any less confused.

When given the choice to torture his captor or kill him quickly, Loki had chosen the quick kill. If he really was as great of a villain as everyone else thought, why would he do that? He had said those things to get a rise out of Harry, but did he really feel that way?

There was something going on with that man and before Harry could pass judgment on him, he had to figure out what it was.

Harry stood and stretched. Time for round two. He tossed around in the small kitchen for a few minutes and scrounged up a small meal. He picked up the plate and a glass of water and brought it into the room. Loki was still seated on the bed when he entered. Harry got the feeling he was looking for escape routes, not that he blamed him.

"I brought you food." Harry said, bringing the plate closer to Loki. "No silverware though." Loki glanced between the plate and Harry, confused.

"Why would you do such a thing. If you meant to kill me it would be wasted food and more of a mess." Loki stared at the plate suspiciously and didn't reach for it.

"I don't know if I'm going to kill you yet and I was raised on the belief that you feed anyone who comes into your home. If you don't want it though, that's fine." Harry pulled back the plate and turned away. He stopped at the door when Loki called out to him.

"How do I know it is not poisoned?" Harry scoffed at the question.

"Believe me, if I kill you, you will see it coming and it will be well deserved. Now are you going to eat this or am I going to throw it away?" Harry asked. He had to wait a few moments before Loki answered.

"I require sustenance. Asgardian's require less food, but I have been injured and S.H.I.E.L.D. has been less inclined to feed me." The voice was just as sharp as when issuing threats. He wasn't really asking for the food, but ordering it. The excuse he gave Harry afterwards was probably to make himself feel like he wasn't giving in.

Harry turned back and handed the food to Loki's outstretched hand. Harry went back to leaning against the wall and watching him. It took barely a few minutes before he was finished.

"Why would you feed the killer of your friend? The man who destroyed most of New York City?" Harry picked up the plate and handed him the glass of water.

"Sympathy for the devil." Loki looked at him strangely, he didn't get the reference. That was okay because it was a lie. The food was laced with a calming potion and a slight truth compulsion. It wasn't enough for Loki to notice it straight away, but it grew with time. "If you are finished we can finish the conversation."

Loki looked on and Harry vanished the glass and plate. No doubt he was trying to figure out the powers that Harry held.

"You still haven't informed me what you want from me. If not to kill me or recruit me, then what?" Loki asked.

"Right now, I just want to know why you came to Earth. Why try to destroy it?" Harry asked.

"I didn't try to destroy it. I wanted to rule it. Weak mortal minds like yourself need a controlling influence. Just look what you've done without one. Countless wars, endless bloody struggle, destroying the world one car at a time, making bombs, destroying entire races. You can't tell me that being independent is really working out for you. You were made to be ruled, you just didn't have the proper authority." Loki said smugly. Harry didn't know if he was trying to get him mad again, but it wasn't working.

"That's a nice speech, but I don't believe you. Why would you bring those aliens to help you? You had the power to control whoever you wanted. If given time you could have controlled all of the world leaders into doing exactly what you wished. Why bring the aliens at all? All they did was destroy things, you must have known we would have fought back. People have done a lot worse than blow up a city just to save itself from an invading force. You are too clever to have not thought of that. So that must not have really been the plan. Or maybe it just wasn't your plan." Harry paused, thinking of something else Thor mentioned. "Thor told me that you were falling through the voids of space. How did you even get to Earth?" Loki looked sharply at Harry, a bit of anger seemed to be rising in his eyes.

"You know Thor?" Loki asked.

"I'll answer your question if you answer mine." Harry said.

"Falling isn't endless. You have to land somewhere." Loki said snidely, but there was a bit of something else there. Loki was afraid of something, whether it was the fall or the landing Harry couldn't tell.

"So you landed with them, the alien's that invaded?" Harry asked, looking for answers. Loki nodded sharply, he seemed to be fighting the compulsion.

"They were the people that I fell to, but they were being controlled by another. They requested that I bring them the Tesseract in return for my freedom. Now tell me, how do you know Thor?" Loki asked again. He seemed shaken that he had revealed so much to Harry.

"We met just before the battle in New York actually. He fell onto my property by way of a crashed cage. You are to blame for that I think. He told me how he mourned what you had been through. How he didn't want you for an enemy. How he wanted you to go home with him." Harry told him.

"My brother is an arrogant fool and a selfish hero. His quest to save everyone is naive and will eventually get him killed. He isn't my real brother. He doesn't care about me. He just doesn't want to feel bad that not everything turns out like how hopes." Loki spat.

"Do you really believe that? Cause I don't. I saw how much he cared for you and I would think that after growing up fighting battles together, you would care for him as well."

"I care nothing for that selfish child." Loki growled. Harry stood up straight.

"Don't you really? This is what I want to know Loki. Do you really care nothing for him, your own brother? Do you hold nothing but rage in your for what has been done to you? If only hate is left then I will do this world a favor by killing you. No one deserves to live a life fueled only by hatred. If that is all that remains in you then I won't hesitate." Harry walked closer now, drawing out his wand. The compulsion should still be working enough to get a straight answer. "You have killed someone I love. No one will blame me for the revenge I heap upon you after what you have done to the world. Some might mourn, but none will think you didn't get exactly what you deserve. I have known a lot of killers,  _god_ , what kind are you? Do you fight for anything other than selfishness and perceived faults done to you? Do you fight for a cause? Do you kill needlessly? This I need to know if you want to leave this room here alive. That is what I want from you." Harry finished in almost a whisper. Loki leaned away from Harry, eyes widened. He had finally thrown him off of his pedestal where no one could reach.

" _Answer me_!" Harry yelled at the man, pushing out his angry magic. Filling the room with his grief and anger. This is what he needed to know. Was Loki worth letting live, even in punishment. Or did he deserve to die right here and right now?

"I don't know." Loki almost whispered. He was fighting strongly now, trying not to answer the question. Trying not to reveal that part of himself. Whether he was hiding it from Harry or from himself was hard to tell. Harry couldn't let the question go unanswered though, he pushed his magic into Loki forcing the compulsion to work harder. It was only a few moments later when the words were forced from Loki's tongue.

"YES. Yes, I care." Loki's mouth snapped shut. The magic was shut down, crushed. Harry wouldn't get anything more than that, but he didn't care. He got what he needed.

Harry turned from the room, leaving a contemplating Loki on the bed. He knew what to do next.


	10. The Search

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/steal chess sets with the Avengers or Harry Potter.

Agent Maria Hill stiffly walked into the conference room. This meeting was the last thing anyone had wanted to do and since she had draw the short straw she got it. She got behind the desk at the front of the room and plugged in the USB that contained all of the relevant files. Since their servers had been invaded yesterday and the source of the invasion had been traced back to the files in question they had unceremoniously been removed from contact with other classified information.

Despite the fact that the agents in the Computer Security department couldn't find anything untoward about the files. As far as the extensive search could tell, there was no way that those files could have opened a pathway into their database, but since they had Director Fury had ordered them to be moved to a single USB that never touched the main network.

Maria had thought he was over reacting at first. After all, they hadn't found a single computer in the raid that they performed on the address that the hack was traced back to. Then, Loki was stolen by the exact man whose files had been the ones to open the breach in the firewall. It was too much of a coincidence to be ignored.

She turned back to the room. Banner was already there with Rogers, the two most responsible of the bunch of hooligans that could loosely be called a team. The Asgardian, Thor, was also standing around looking imposing, one of his talents.

She looked to the clock on the wall. It beeped, showing the time of 15:00. Barely a second had passed before Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton walked into the room. On time, exactly as their training predicted. Now the only one they were waiting for was Tony Stark. According to his personality profile he would be the type of person that would show up late just to piss everyone else off.

"Hello, everyone. Let's get this party going." Tony Stark sauntered into the room like he owned it. Right on time for the meeting and an hour after the time that Maria had given him.

"Thank you Mr. Stark, if you would please take a seat." She pointed at the empty chair at the front of the room. Stark looked a little put out that no one was mad at him.

"What's this about Agent Hill?" Captain Rogers was unsurprisingly earnest. It was a character trait that was well known in the man, but Agent Hill filed the information away anyway.

"What I am about to tell you is beyond classified and most of it should never leave this room." Maria clicked the mouse to bring up the first piece of information. Details of a firewall security breach. "At 22:00 last night, our database was infiltrated and classified information was removed. The breach was quick and dirty leaving our analysts shocked and in no position to stop it. However, we did trace back the hack to a small home in Bermuda." She clicked the mouse again, this time bringing up the pictures of a raided house on the beach. "As you can see from the pictures no computer was found and neither were any people."

"I'm sorry, but what has this got to do with me?" Stark asked snidely. Maria glared down at him and continued.

"The Director was almost ready to write it off as some sort of fluke, before S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters was infiltrated at 23:00 that same night." The video that was brought on the screen next showed images of a man in black sneaking down a hallway and entering a vent. "We did not discover this until it was too late to do anything." She clicked again and pictures of the destroyed cell door were pulled up. "At 23:14, Loki was released from his cell."

That got a visceral reaction in the room.

"My brother escaped?" Thor's attacking tone filled the room.

"How could you let this happen. I thought you had the most secure cells in the world. Isn't that what you told us?" Banner looked more irritated than mad, but Maria tensed anyway.

"We don't think he escaped." That brought silence quickly. "We think he was kidnapped, by this man."

Maria was wrong, the image that came onto the screen got the most visceral reaction. Even Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff sat back in shock, and Maria was aware that they had been on missions with the man. What she wasn't prepared for with the outpouring of protests from the other occupants in the room.

"HARRY?" Banner and Stark exclaimed at the same time and looked at each other in shock. Both started to say something before they were interrupted by Rogers.

"The bartender?" That caught most of the attention in the room, but before she could ask what he meant, Thor spoke up.

"What does Harry, friend of Hermione, have to do with the man who took my brother?" Maria thought she might just get whiplash from the amount of head turning that she was doing. Her only consolation was that everyone else in the room was doing just as much if not more.

"Wait, how does the big guy know Harry?" Stark asked pointing at Thor. "For that matter, how do the rest of you?"

"We met on vacation." Banner said with a small smile, like he knew something no one else did. Maria stared in shock at him. As far as she was aware Banner hadn't been on vacation once in his life, though he did a lot of running through areas that could attract tourists.

"Phil was right about that?" Barton looked surprised at Banner's statement, but it was his question that had the room swinging it's heads again.

"Right about what?" Romanoff asked Barton confused.

"Never mind that, what did Captain Crunch mean by bartender?" Stark asked Rogers sharply.

"Harry owns a pub in Brooklyn. I go there regularly." Rogers answered. "How do you know him?"

"He is one of the top investors in Stark Industries. He also owns a charity for orphans of war." Maria couldn't keep the shock off of her face this time. Lord Potter-Black was very wealthy and had invested in many companies after inheriting control of the family fortune. She hadn't been aware that he had invested in Stark though. "He told me he invested in my clean energy technology." Stark looked smug, but that was pretty much how he always looked. "So how do you know Harry big guy?"

"I met Harry after I fell from the flying command boat." Maria groaned a little at the name. She remembered Coulson trying to explain to Thor exactly what the Helicarrier was to little effect. "It was his parcel of land that Mjölnir and I crashed upon. The lady Hermione informed me that she knew of Jane Foster. We had a discussion before the battle in the City of New York."

Maria shook her head in disbelief.

"As informative as this has been, I should continue." Maria pointed to the picture. "This is the man that kidnapped Loki."

"I say we let him keep him. Loki deserves everything he get and I can think of no one better to give him exactly what he deserves." Barton said gruffly. Maria knew well that Barton had taken the death of Agent Coulson badly and still hadn't recovered from his time under the control of Loki.

"I will not let my brother be kept by mortal hands. He deserves Asgardian justice." Something that Maria had heard all too much over the past couple of days.

"No one is arguing with you, but there is no reason he can't be softened a little before he gets there." Barton was ruthless. Maria had known this before she had ever met the man, just from mission debriefs alone. It seemed to grate on the nerves of Thor though.

"I will not have Loki beaten in such a way." Thor growled at Barton. Barton would have sprang from his seat and attacked if Romanoff's hand hadn't been placed on his shoulder. Maria interrupted before it could go any further.

"As I was saying, Lord Harry Potter-Black is the target in question. He is a billionaire with his hands in pots all over the world. He was knighted at the age of 18 for killing a terrorist that had been attacking the United Kingdom on and off for three decades." Maria pulled up the picture of him getting knighted by the Queen. Several people looked shocked by this including Banner and Rogers, but Thor just looked mostly confused.

"Harry is a knight?" Rogers looked taken aback. Which made sense if he had only thought the man was a bartender before this meeting.

"He also has world class training in espionage and close quarter combat."

"Who trained him?" Rogers asked quickly.

Barton answered, "I did." At the exact same time that Maria informed them, "S.H.I.E.L.D. did." The heads in the room swung back to Barton. Maria continued before they could ask anything.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. was one of the many organizations that were called upon to help train the teenager. However, it is the most important one right now. When in S.H.I.E.L.D. training the young agent met Agent Coulson and developed a mentor like relationship with the man that continued long after Potter-Black's time with S.H.I.E.L.D. came to an end."

The people that littered the room now all had a look of understanding on their face. Even Thor who appeared to look quite distressed at the news.

"So everyone here has met this man, except for the spider, and we this is the first we are hearing of it?" Stark tried to lessen the tension in the room.

"I have also met with Lord Potter-Black. We had quite the night together a couple of months after I joined S.H.I.E.L.D." Everyone except Barton looked shocked at the news, but they told each other everything so that didn't really count.

"Woo, Agent I-can-kill-you-with-my-pinky getting it on with the target." Stark teased.

"I killed 23 men that night." Romanoff said with a mockery of a smile. The rest of the room went silent. "Is there any more information on subject that we need to know?" Agent Romanoff asked professionally.

"Lord Potter-Black appeared to be emotionally unstable when he met with the Director yesterday. Director Fury warned that he might have exacerbated the situation."

"Who hasn't he exacerbated? That man should could with a warning, 'Hostile to everyone. Please don't touch.'" Stark leaned back in his chair, and appeared to be thinking hard about something. Maria wondered what sort of tortures were crossing his mind.

"What is the mission?" Agent Romanoff asked.

"Find and return Loki to S.H.I.E.L.D. holding cells or whatever is left of him to Thor." The Asgardian looked even more distressed. "Also, return with Lord Potter-Black for interrogation."

"Where do we start looking?" Banner asked looking contemplative.

"The pub right?" Rogers answered the man, still looking a little lost.

"Captain Rogers, you seem to be forgetting something. Lord Potter-Black is a billionaire with dozens of properties, not including those held by his hundreds of companies. He could be in any of them. The property that we back traced the hack to was owned by a shell corporation that was owned by a company that was owned by a subsidiary of one of his major companies. This is not a simple and easy task." Maria told him steadily. The whole group looked a little taken aback by the information.

"We have already raided several of his primary dwellings including his manor in Northern England." Maria pulled up the pictures of the property. She smiled at the several widened eyes and smalls gasps of surprise. "This man is no common street thug. He broke into one of the most highly protected buildings in the world without any help as far as we could tell. He didn't kill a single agent and removed one man without any injuries to his person. This is no laughing matter. The only way we will find this man is if he has made a mistake somewhere, or he wants to be found." She paused, letting it sink in. "If he wants to be found, then chances are it is already too late.

She closed the files and unplugged the USB. The room was silent and there were many contemplative faces. It was Stark that broke the silence this time.

"We still have the program that could find the Tesseract, right?" Stark asked to the surprise of many.

"Yes, we could get it up and running fairly quickly." Banner answered following Stark's train of thought that no one else could. "We have to expand the amount that we are searching for, but with enough tinkering we could get it to find what we want."

"Could you explain in English for the rest of us?" Rogers asked after a few minutes of tennis match conversation that Stark and Banner were having.

"We should be able to find some of the trace elements of the Tesseract on Loki because he is the only one on Earth that traveled here that way. It will take a few hours, but we should be able to track Loki that way." Banner answered quickly. "We will need the use of a lab though."

Maria nodded and waved for them to follow. This was exactly the sort of thing that the Director had been looking for when he contacted the group. Maria left the room with Banner and Stark, leaving the rest to finish their conversation. Banner was already rolling up his sleeves when they arrived at the room.

"Thank you, Ms. Stiff-upper-lip we'll call you in a few hours." Stark moved to a computer, the insult was half hearted.

"Good luck, Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner." Maria left the room to stand guard outside the door. Her top priority was to find Loki and the two buffoons in there were her best shot.

* * *

Harry groaned and lent back in his chair holding his cup of tea. Pulling down the wards on the property was hard work. He rubbed his aching shoulder. It shouldn't be too long now before S.H.I.E.L.D. came crashing through his door or it might be. The speed at which S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived depended entirely on how much of a head start they had given to Tony and Bruce.

He sipped some more of his tea absentmindedly. His thoughts were mostly on the lost god that was occupying his cell room. The room had been designed by Hermione some time during the war. It was the most foolproof they had ever found and one had been installed in almost every Order outpost they had. Though, Harry doubted that the man he currently had in there was plotting much of an escape.

He had done the best he could to make the trickster see the error in his ways, but he had no idea how much of that was going to stick. There was a lot that Loki hadn't told him about, but Harry mostly ignored that.

It wasn't really his business what was going to happen after this. He had done more than his part a long time ago. He had been settled down for awhile now and getting caught up in interplanetary politics wasn't really on his bucket list. Loki was a lost soul, he could relate to that, but saving the world again didn't interest him in the slightest.

Fury hadn't understood that he didn't want to fight anymore or maybe he had and just ignored it. Harry wasn't going to let himself get caught in someone else's schemes again. He hadn't done anything besides steal Loki and that had been under emotional duress, he could already hear the lawyers arguing in his head. Chances are if he pushed hard enough he might get off with a slap on the wrist and some more people spying on him. He tried to get comfortable in his chair.

He hoped the Calvary showed up soon because he was getting a headache from all of his thinking in advance.

Just in time, Harry thought to himself as the remaining ward sent a single to his mind saying that others had arrived on the property. Harry got up and placed the tea cup on the table. He walked to the door calmly.

He opened the door to the surprised and angry faces of what the S.H.I.E.L.D. files had called the Avengers. He could barely do much more than that before he was crashing into a wall with Thor large hand pressing on his chest.

"Where is he?" Thor yelled aggressively to Harry. Harry smiled.

"Back there." Harry pointed to the door down the hallway a little. He dropped a few inches to the floor as Thor sped off to the room. Harry shook his head lightly. "Would you like some tea? I think I made enough for everyone." Harry walked to the kitchen stove, smiling again at the somewhat shocked people. He reached for the tea bags and saw the woman he had know as Natalie's eyes following him. "Not that kind I'm afraid." Natalie scowled a little.

Harry turned his head when he heard crashing coming from the back room. The rest of the group heard as well.

"The plan was for Thor to take Loki back to base as soon as he saw him, but I didn't expect it to be this easy." Clint told him, the question was implied, but Harry ignored it. Harry had to resist the urge to hug the man. It had been awhile since they had last seen each other and Harry missed the coarse older man.

"That will teach me to steal war criminals." Harry said with a smile, filling up several tea cups with water and placing the bags in them. "Please, sit. I'm sure you are tired." Tony was the first to take the cup and the chair offered.

"So, you own a bar and you didn't invite me to the opening?" Tony asked taking a sip of the drink and almost spitting it back out afterwards. Harry smiled at him. "This tastes like cardboard."

"It isn't exactly your kind of bar Tony. No supermodels to be found. Just a bunch of old codgers looking to get pissed. Though the drinks are pretty good, if I do say so myself." Harry answered, looking at Steve as he said so. Steve was standing in the back of the group almost hiding from Harry. Harry didn't know if it was because he felt betrayed or something else entirely.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The question was blurted from the mouth of the Captain and Harry held in a sigh.

"Sometimes, you just want to be yourself without all the fuss that people make. There is a certain anonymity that I hunger for. Who looks at a bartender and sees a billionaire? No one. It is a feeling I'm sure you can understand." Harry told him. Steve nodded after a second. He looked good in that uniform, but the sight of it caused a lump to form in Harry's throat. Phil had designed the uniform.

"What did you do to Loki?" Clint looked almost hungry for the answer. It was worse than Harry had hoped, if Clint wanted revenge that badly.

"I taught him a lesson and I reminded him of something he had tried to forget." Harry answered vaguely. He could tell Clint was slightly disappointed at the answer, but it was what Phil would have wanted. "No one can torture you as much as you can torture yourself." Harry told Clint with a knowing look. He would need to have a long talk with the man sometime. He was not looking forward to it, but Phil wouldn't have wanted Clint to be torturing himself.

"We a going to take you in for interrogation." Natalie told him quickly. Harry grinned at her.

"Natalie, my little thief. It is so nice to see you again. I believe you owe me something." Harry held out his hand.

"My name is Natasha Romanoff and I do not know of what incident you are speaking of." The newly renamed Natasha told him. Harry grinned and took back his hand.

"If that is how you want to play it, then fine." Harry watched as all of the rest of the men in the room stared at Natasha in obvious confusion. Harry didn't explain though. There were some conversations that stayed between two people. "Does that mean you want to take me in now? I'd best finish my tea then." Harry swallowed the rest of his cup in one gulp. He held out his hands to the group. "I am yours to arrest my fair lady."

Natasha glared a little and before Harry knew what was going on his chest and face were against the counter and his hands were pulled roughly behind him and tied.

The walk outside lead them to what Harry would have called a jet on steroids. He was roughly pushed into a seat by Natasha and the rest of the group filed in. Bruce slid next to him softly. The rest of the group went to the front of the jet. Tony and Steve buckled up behind Natasha and Clint took the pilots chair.

"Mr. Evans." Bruce said softly. Harry smiled.

"Mr. Green, how lovely it is to see you again. I do wish it were under better circumstances though." Harry brandished his cuffs at the man.

"How was the rest of your trip?" Bruce asked as if making small talk about the weather.

"It was a good vacation. I learned a lot and most of it was very relaxing." Harry told the man. "What about you? Did you learn anything on your trip?" Bruce's responding grin told Harry everything he needed to know. They remained in silence for a few more minutes until Bruce spoke up again.

"The building wasn't there." Bruce told him carefully, almost whispering. Harry looked at him confused. "The program that we used got an exact location on Loki, but the place it pointed us to didn't have a building on it. It was just an empty field in Missouri, why Missouri anyway?" Bruce continued before Harry could answer. "Never mind. The field was empty for exactly 10 minutes before the building showed up. Stark didn't notice, he thought the program just had a bug. I didn't though. The location was exactly the same, but in 10 minutes it went from not having a building to having one."

Harry smiled at the man.

"Must have been a bug in the program." Harry answered the man with an innocent grin.

The landed on the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in a couple of hours. Harry allowed Natasha to lead him from the plane and deposit him in the custody of a woman Agent.

"It's so nice to meet you." Harry greeted the woman with a smile. There wasn't much else he could do at this point, best face it with a smile. "I would shake your hand, but unfortunately..." Harry motioned to his cuffs again. The agent's face didn't crack.

"Thank you Black Widow, I will take it from here." The agent grabbed his arm and started leading him away. Harry turned back a little to give a small wave to the rest of the Avengers. His smile fell from his face as he entered the building. He stiffened slightly and put on his professional face and the grace that accompanied it. "My name is Agent Hill."

"It is nice to meet you Agent Hill. Do you know about me?" Harry asked as professionally as he could. The only way that the woman would answer him.

"Enough to know that if you didn't want to be here, you wouldn't be. Will this be a problem?" Hill asked him, moving through the identical corridors. Harry gave the woman a small smile.

"Not at all, Agent Hill. After all, there is very little that Fury could do that would change anything and I will probably be out of here tomorrow anyway, with a clean record. It is more advantageous for me to be here, than to be anywhere else. You won't have any problems from me Agent Hill." Harry told the woman. Hill nodded and opened a door. The interrogation room was pretty standard fair.

"It has been a pleasure to meet your acquaintance. Agent Coulson spoke highly of you." Harry stumbled a little and caught himself.

"The pleasure has been all mine." Harry was smiling and sitting down in his chair as the door closed.


	11. A Day Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/say goodbye to the Avengers or Harry Potter

Tony Stark looked awkward. Clint knew that this could not possibly be the first occurrence of awkwardness that Stark had ever gone through, but it was surprising to Clint who had never seen it before from the man. Stark's reaction shouldn't have been a surprise. The man's file discussed in great detail his father's death and his not so good reaction to it. So, it made sense that Tony wasn't on his best game at funerals, especially funerals of friends. The fidgeting of hands, the shifty, red rimmed eyes, the constantly shuffling feet all indicated that the man didn't really want to be here. Clint couldn't blame him.

After all, he didn't really want to be at Phil's funeral either.

Clint scanned the rest of the grounds until he spotted the figure he was looking for. The kid had grown up a lot since the first time he had met him. He grimaced at the image of the war-torn, over worked child that popped into his head. He wondered idly if he had grown a conscious after his years of working for S.H.I.E.L.D. He glanced at the newest headstone in the cemetery, maybe he had, but if so it was the fault of one man.

His heart that was supposed to be nonexistent clenched in his chest. He had made a lot of promises to himself in years gone by and he had broken his biggest one the first time after he had met Phil.

Don't get attached.

Clint knew he wasn't ready to fully accept Phil's death. There was just too much unsaid between the two men. Clint doubted he would ever really accept it, but he could still felt the guilt weighing him down. No matter what the agency shrinks would try to tell him, the blame for Phil's death could be partially laid at his feet. Phil, the overly professional man whose only life was work and Harry. The only S.H.I.E.L.D. handler that could ever live up to the title. The man who could stand amongst heroes and gods and not look small.

Clint forced his mind onto different things, there would be enough heartache today to mull over. His eyes moved back to Harry, the kid. Not so much a kid anymore. Harry had become a hero, a billionaire with a charity, and, somewhere along the way, a bartender. Clint didn't know what to think about these developments. That didn't stop him from protecting the kid though. He had known the child soldier who was vulnerable and needed a friend. Just because he was no longer so vulnerable didn't mean he didn't need a friend.

Clint had spent the last several days skulking around the vent system near the interrogation room. Perhaps it was an overreaction, after all it wasn't like Fury could do anything to a man so in the spot light, but that didn't stop him. Clint needed to protect something, needed to  _do_  something. His whole body started shivering uncontrollably if he sat still for too long, thinking about what had happened. For a man like Clint, whose life revolved around his ability to control his body, it was a betrayal of the worst kind.

Looking after the kid had given him an excuse. S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't anywhere close to trusting him again, he avoided hallways because of the looks he got from passing agents. He couldn't allow his brain to slow down, there was too much danger in slowing down. So, he had protected the kid from afar, making sure he was close enough to help if something were to happen, which it hadn't.

That left him where he was right now. Possibly the worse place he could be. He glanced at the headstone again and pulled tight on the reigns of his body. He  _wouldn't_  cry. He hadn't cried since he was four years old. He wasn't about to start now, in the middle of a group of agents who he would have to work with later. So, he wouldn't, couldn't cry. He repeated to himself.

He lost himself there for second, staring at the headstone trying to prevent himself from the outburst of uncontrollable sobs that wanted to invade his body. He was so lost that he didn't even realize someone was next to him until he felt a hand touch his shoulder. Clint's flinch and quick turn left a knife against a familiar throat.

The sad green eyes that stared at him didn't flinch away from the knife on his throat, but Clint did. He tucked it away quickly, almost disgusted with himself. He was losing control again, something he had promised to never let happen after Loki.

"Sorry." Clint said gruffly, his voice out of use. The man's green eyes softened.

"I understand the feeling. I'm about ready to stab someone too." Clint did his best to contain the flinch that his body made. The kid gave a sad smile to Clint. "Come on, let's go for a walk." Clint let his eyes drift over to the congregating people, the hole in the ground, and the accursed headstone. Harry's eyes followed his path and he shrugged. "We'll get back in time. Come on."

Harry's hands were in his pockets, shoulders slumped making the fitted suit look too big on him, a kid in mans clothes. Clint flashed back to a similar image of a teenager in a combat uniform that didn't fit him. Harry started walking away a Clint followed.

They walked for awhile before they passed another new headstone. It was recently placed, the loose ground spoke of a newly buried body. Clint couldn't stop his body from freezing in front of it. Harry was a few steps away before he realized Clint wasn't following him and came back. He glanced at the headstone.

" _Yansin 'Lucky' Roberts._  Did you know him?" Harry asked looking through him.

"For a second." Clint's mind flashed to the image of him his bow, an arrow notched in. A quick release, the hit through the heart. The man wasn't far enough away for anything other than a perfect hit. The nametag of the man flashed in his mind as his body hit the ground with a familiar thump,  _Roberts_. One of his causalities. He had met the man just in time for 'Lucky' to die.

Clint had memorized the names of the people he had killed while under the control of Loki. It was a type of torture that all agents undertook at least once in their careers. Lucky Roberts had been one of the first, but the cemetery was littered with the new headstones that he had placed there. There was one name that weighed more than the others though, Phil Coulson. His handler had died and he was partially at fault. It hurt more than any torture he had ever endured.

Harry hand touched his shoulder again softly. Clint couldn't help the flinch, but he didn't remove the hand. "It will be okay Clint."

"How do you know?" Clint said caustically. "I made headstones in this cemetery. The place where I will once end up and I put people here. How do I know they won't all mug me when I finally get here for good. Their killer in the same resting place as them. It is disgraceful." Clint couldn't take his eyes away from the shining stone.

Harry's hand twisted his body around. The kid's eyes were bright, almost angry.

"Don't say that kind of stuff to me Clint. You weren't the person who killed these agents. That blame rests solely on Loki's shoulders. You weren't yourself." Harry said convincingly. Clint liked the words, but his subconscious would never accept them. No matter who was really to blame Clint was the one that pulled the trigger, released the arrow, killed these good men and women. He didn't understand how someone else could forgive him from something he couldn't even forgive himself for.

Harry sighed and brushed his hand through his hair, a familiar nervous gesture.

"I was never good a funerals. Too many in too short of a time." Harry looked tired. Clint knew why, a few days in an interrogation room would make anyone exhausted even one as nice as the one Harry had stayed in. That was only part of it though, the kid hadn't been sleeping well, something Clint knew from all of the hours he had spent unable to get to sleep in the vents because of Harry's tossing and turning. Harry had a faraway look in his eyes. "You aren't the only person who had put a friend in the ground Clint." Harry said softly, his voice cracking a little.

He was more worn out than Clint had first thought, there was no other way he would start talking about that. It was Clint's turn to place a hand on Harry's shoulder. He didn't say anything, there wasn't anything that could be said.

"I miss him." The voice was soft, Clint almost missed it and kind of wished he had. His heart did that funny clenching thing that it wasn't supposed to be able to do. "I hate him a little for it too, that's the worst part. How could he die, how could he do that to me? He left me alone... _again_. After everything we went through and he dies trying to play the hero." Harry scoffed a little. "He should have known better, he shouldn't have left me in the first place."

Harry paused for a second. "You want to know the worst part?" Harry didn't wait for an answer before continuing. "He told me he loved me...and I hate him for it." Harry rubbed his eyes and Clint could see the wetness that was accumulating in them. "I hate him for it because he didn't give me the chance to say it back to him. I didn't get to say  _goodbye_. After everything he pulled me through I think I loved him more than my own father for awhile. Of course, my father died before I ever got to know him so it wasn't a big contest, but Phil he just..." Harry's voice cracked and he stopped talking. "The first time I have ever regretted not being able to carry a phone with me. He called and I..." Harry rubbed his eyes again. "I couldn't answer him. That's what hurts the worst. He finally needed me and I was nowhere to be found. It kills me inside." Harry's tears were coming too fasts now for him to rub them away. His body was trembling. "I don't get to see him anymore."

Clint didn't know what he was doing. He had never comforted a person in his life, just ask Natasha, but seeing Harry breaking down caused an instinctive reaction throughout his body and before he knew it awkward arms were encircling the man. He didn't know what he was doing, nothing felt right about his position, did people really do this to each other? Clint almost released him, but when Harry's arms closed around him too he felt himself relax a little.

It felt better. Clint didn't know exactly what  _it_  was that was feeling better, but the hand crushing his heart loosened a little. He imagined this how a child must be comforted when they are sad, he had never been a child like that, but from this feeling alone he guessed it would probably have been great. They stayed there for a few minutes just relaxing with each other, sharing the pain of lives lost too early and friends gone too soon. They were friends, getting comfort from one another. No matter how they acted in the real world, right now they were just people who hurt.

Clint released Harry first, reminding himself that he was a highly skilled agent that killed people for a living. That didn't help the little bit of loss he felt when Harry detached from him. Harry rubbed his eyes a little, but Clint was glad to see that he didn't have to. He had kept that part of him locked tight and despite the letting go of control he had a few minutes ago, his eyes had not betrayed him.

Harry looked around the cemetery again, acclimating to the real world again.

"This is a nice place." Harry told Clint. Clint almost smiled.

"Yeah, it is really pleasant here. It is always kind of amusing to think about it though. The location of the S.H.I.E.L.D. cemetery, this place, is probably the worst kept secret in the company." Clint gestured around him. "They try to keep the location secret so that our enemies won't get their hands on our bodies after we are gone. Of course the whole place is kind of a joke anyway. Most of the graves here are empty, some are just a headstone and nothing else. Many KIA or presumed KIA, people that never made it back. Some are cremated and their ashes scattered, others buried in urns. Possibly this is the worst cemetery in existence for actually keeping dead bodies."

Harry smiled a little at that, it reassured Clint that maybe the world wasn't ending.

"It gets better than that though. This cemetery is supposed to be a secret, so much so that S.H.I.E.L.D. has never actually named it. Whenever it is referred to in reports it is always just 'The Cemetery'. So, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, having the morbid humor that they do, decided to give it a nickname. You know the phase, 'I'll sleep when I'm dead'?" Harry nodded a little, his eyes lighter. "We refer to this place as 'A Day Off'. So sometimes an agent will say, 'I'll get A Day Off when I'm dead'." Clint smiled a little at the chuckle that escaped Harry, he was feeling lighter. Harry's laugher filled the area.

"It's perfect. I was always telling Phil he needed a vacation." Clint started see the tears creeping back into Harry's eyes. "He's finally taking A Day Off." Harry's laugher died off and he gave Clint a watery smile. Clint smiled back at him.

"Come on, kid. Let's go say goodbye to a great man." Clint threw an arm around Harry's shoulder and they started walking back. The new headstones didn't stand out to Clint as much anymore, but he still noticed them. He gave a small nod to each one they passed.

The weight on his chest was a little lighter.

* * *

Harry entered the Shrieking Shack tiredly. S.H.I.E.L.D. interrogation squad had released him just in time for Phil's funeral. Harry had scrounged around what was left of his apartment for a suit which he hurriedly fixed up in time to get blindfolded and driven to the cemetery where they were burying Phil's body. After an emotionally exhausting day trying to keep it together in front of a group of assassins and superheroes, he had a mini-breakdown in front of Clint that made him embarrassed, but at the same time not.

He crashed on a bar stool and rubbed his red eyes. He hadn't cried this much since Ron's funeral.

All this was compounded by the fact that he didn't have anywhere to sleep tonight. The apartment was still in too much of a mess for him to sleep there. The hotels were filled with other families whose homes had been destroyed in the battle. Which left him with the pub. He groaned and rubbed his eyes leaning against the bar.

He only lifted his head when he heard the dinging of the bell over the door. He turned tiredly.

"We're clos..." He trailed off when he saw who walked through the door.

"Well, you were right, this certainly isn't my kind of place." Tony Stark said looking around the room. "I can see why time-boy likes it though. It certainly does feel like it fell out of the middle ages." He turned outside. "He's in here boys."

"Who's with you?" Harry asked trying to wake up.

"Just some friends. We are here to get pissed." Tony looked contemplative for a second. "That is what you Brits say right? Pissed, drunk, same thing? Whatever it is, that's what we are here to do."

Tony moved out of the way and Steve entered the room after him. He looked sheepish and Harry figured he was probably the one who blabbed to Tony about where the place was. Harry just shook his head at him and sighed. Steve smiled back at him, sheepishness gone, all was forgiven.

"Huh, nice place." Bruce entered the room with Natasha close behind. They settled into chairs around the biggest table in the room. Harry was going to say something before the door flew open and a large Asgardian god entered the room.

"Hello, friends and allies. Harry," Harry almost flinched away when Thor strode over to him, he hadn't forgotten the wall that Thor had thrown him against. Thor did nothing but grab Harry in a giant hug. Harry was immediately reminded of Hagrid, a man who just didn't know his own strength. Harry gasped in the air he had been deprived of when Thor released him. "Son of Coul was a great warrior and an honorable man. We are here to feast his life and deeds. To drink mead and ale till we fall."

Harry scratched the back of his head and blushed a little. "Um, Thor, about Loki..." Harry fell silent as Thor slashed his hand through the air.

"We are here to honor the sacrifice and loss of a great warrior and man. Whatever quarrels we have outside of this are forgotten for this. It would be dishonorable to sully his service with a bar brawl." Thor clapped Harry on the back and he had to stop himself from falling over. "Now, we drink!"

Harry watching in surprise as Thor took his seat at the table. Sometime during the Thor greeting Clint had snuck in. He smiled a little at the image the group made, Tony, Steve, Clint, Natasha, Bruce, and Thor all sitting together ready to drink for a man that some of them didn't even know. These people had saved the world together. Harry felt a rush of pride in his chest, they fit together so well.

"Well, what are you waiting for? We need alcohol." Tony declared and dodged a smack that Steve sent to the bad of his head. Harry couldn't contain the smile on his face. Harry jumped behind the counter and grabbed several bottles and glasses. As he made his way to the table the group was already starting to get comfortable and relax.

Harry passed around a couple of bottles and glasses before he sat down himself. He grabbed an empty chair and pulled it up next to him. In front of the chair he placed down a glass and filled it with firewhiskey. A knowing look passed through the members of the Avengers, but Steve was the first to speak.

"To Phil Coulson." He raised his glass and the rest of the group followed.

"To Phil Coulson." Thor almost drowned out the rest with his enthusiastic cheer. Then, almost synchronously they all threw back their drinks. Harry smiled at the look on Bruce's and Thor's faces, they were the only two that had never tried the substance.

"This is a good drink." Bruce said while coughing a little. Natasha patted him on the back a little while laughing.

"Verily." Thor said taking another swig of the drink. Harry, Tony, and Steve laughed at the man and started drinking themselves. Tony was the first to break the silence.

"Did you know that Coulson used to watch Supernanny?" He asked with a smile. Clint, Natasha, and Bruce laughed and smiled.

"That's not the best of it though." Harry said with a smile. "He loved all of those types of shows, Supernanny, Nanny 911, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, but his favorite by far was the Dog Whisper." Most of the table burst in to uproarious laugher. "He loved the animal planet, I swear." Thor and Steve looked confused.

"There is a man who can talk to dogs?" Steve asked lost. Which caused the table that had slowed down its laughing to start up again. Clint patted him on the back solemnly, swallowing his laugher.

"We will get you back up to speed soon Cap." He chuckled a little. "I have one. There was this one mission in Bangladesh where Phil led us into a lard factory. The mission went sidewise and by the time we got out of there. There wasn't a single man not completely covered in the stuff. From head to toe, we were covered in lard. I was still picking it out of my hair months later." Clint added with a smile. The table started laughing again. This time Thor and Steve added in. Thor's laugher was a lot like thunder shaking the room, but it somehow had everything seem brighter.

"Oh, I've got a good one." Natasha said moving her chair closer to the table. "We were in the middle of an Indian warehouse district and everyone is suited up and ready to go. Phil gets the address and we a pumped, ready to get some bad guys. We bust down this door and almost get crushed by the pile of teddy bears that falls out. See there had been a mistake in the message that had been sent to Phil by some new hire. They had sent the address next door to the one we were supposed to raid. While, the majority of the people in front were getting crushed to death by fluffy bears Phil had to take a small group and try and salvage what was left of the mission. Phil, me, and three others went next down and did a surprise attack. We surprised them alright, everyone of us was covered in cotton stuffing of the bears and Phil even had a pink one attached to some Velcro that was on his suit. It must have been the most hilariously silly raid they had ever seen. We captured them all, of course, and then had to go help our fallen teammates shovel teddy bears off themselves."

The table burst into laughter again. Harry couldn't contain himself and laughed along with them at the image of Phil performing a raid with a teddy bear attached to him.

It continued like that for a long time before Bruce interrupted.

"Sorry, bathroom break." Bruce said getting out of his chair. The rest of the group waved him away, but Harry stood as well.

"That sounds like a good idea." He followed Bruce to the back hallway and stopped. Bruce stopped as well and turned to him.

"How are you?" Bruce asked and then grimaced. "Sorry, stupid question."

"I've been better of course, but I'll be fine. It will take some time, but I'll be fine." Harry said more assuredly than he felt. Bruce nodded. Harry couldn't stop himself from asking, "Why are you here anyway? You didn't know Phil and if I remember correctly, you were going to escape to the middle of nowhere again." Bruce shrugged sheepishly.

"Tony offered me a lab." He said as if it explained everything, which it kind of did. "I won't stay for long of course, but a few weeks wouldn't be so bad. Just to decompress. Besides after that Loki debacle I thought I should stay nearby." Harry had the decency to blush. "Anyway, while I might not have known Phil, which is a shame if the stories are anything to go by, I do know you. I'm here because he was a good man who sacrificed himself for us and if we don't honor that we are kind of terrible people." Bruce shrugged. "Besides, you knew him and you are my friend."

Harry smiled and pushed the tears back in his eyes, he had cried enough for the day.

"I'd better get back." Harry said with a smile. Bruce nodded and they separated.

Harry got back to the table just in time to see that most of the bottles had been emptied. He started picking up empty glasses and bottles.

"Here let me help with that." Steve grabbed a couple empty bottles as well and joined Harry in walking behind the bar. Harry directed him to the kitchen and placed the dirty glasses and bottles in the sink.

"Agent Coulson was a good man." Steve's voice wasn't shocking, nor was what he said. In fact, Harry had expected something like this. "He did his duty to his country and died a hero. It was an honor to have met him." Steve was stiff when Harry looked at him, a soldiers stance. Harry let a sigh escape him.

"You don't have to do his Steve. Phil wasn't your soldier, you held no responsibility for his actions and don't need to give me the grieving mother speech as to why he died. I get it, it was his job. He did what he did because he felt it was best, no other reason. I don't begrudge him his choice, even if I wish he had chosen differently." Harry scrubbed some of the dishes. "Thank you for earlier though. A part of Phil would have been ecstatic to know that Captain America gave his eulogy."

"It was a privilege." Steve said stiffly.

"Go back out. I'll be there in a minute." Harry leaned over the sink scrubbing out the dishes.

He didn't know how long he had stayed lost in thought before Tony entered the room roughly.

"Stop moping in there. We need more alcohol and you have to give it to us." Harry looked at him. Tony looked bad. Not as bad as Harry was sure he looked, but nowhere close to normal Stark standards. Harry smiled at him. The easiest part of grief is sharing it with friends.

"Yeah, let's go get pissed." Harry put down the dish towel and turned off the water. As he was walking past Tony to get into the room he felt a hand pat his shoulder. He turned to Tony in surprise. That was probably as close to comforting as Tony got. Tony shrugged a little.

"Agent was a good guy, even if he did watch Supernanny."

Harry smiled at Tony and they walked back into the room. Harry grabbed more bottles and headed back to the table of already too drunk people.

It was several hours later, dozens of empty bottles, and hundreds of stories later when the group finally decided to call it quits. Bruce was the first to stumble out, leaning against Thor who didn't look too steady himself. Tony and Steve started arguing and then felt bad about it so they decided to leave. Steve was in much better condition that Tony.

All that was left was Clint and Natasha. Clint looked so tired that Harry allowed him to crash on one of the booths. Harry didn't know if he was sleeping or pretending, but didn't really care.

Natasha moved closer to him. Harry had moved behind the counter after he had picked up the remaining glasses and bottles. He would certainly need to restock, but it was nothing major. He stilled when he felt a hand touch his and rub suggestively. Harry looked up into Natasha's eyes. She was much less drunk than she had appeared several minutes ago. Her hand continued rubbing his and a question was in her eyes. Harry sighed and slumped.

"Thank you Natasha, but no, not tonight." Natasha just nodded and removed her hand. Her hands clenched and then rubbed each other. A faraway look in her eyes. It was Harry's turn to place a hand on hers. "Hey, how are you doing?"

"Not great. I..." She stopped herself from saying anything else, but Harry could finish the sentence for her. She missed Phil as well. Which made sense. Phil was the only person crazy enough to be a handler for Clint and Natasha, a fact he had complained about multiple times to Harry. "He was a good handler. Efficient. Professional. I don't think another could do his job as well."

Harry read in between the lines. He stopped himself from hugging her. He doubted it would end well for him.

"Come on, I'll show you something." Harry walked out from behind the counter. "Clint can come too, if he stops pretending to be asleep." Harry almost smiled at the quick movements of the agent. Before he knew it there were two agents following him up a ladder to the roof. "I don't know if you were aware, but the first time I really met Phil, face to face, without all of the codenames and agents speak, was on the rooftop of Clint's arcade. I bought this place partially because it allowed me to buy the rights to a part of the roof as well. I got to change it into this."

Harry pulled himself onto the roof of the building and helped Natasha up as well. Near the center of the roof was a tent-like structure. There was a telescope poking out from a window. Harry walked across the roof and opened the door of the building to the two agents.

The room in the structure had a cushioned floor and pillows with a table and chairs to one side. There was a refrigerator to the side of the room as well. The entire roof of the structure appeared to be glass and what little of the stars you could see shined through it. There was multiple telescopes in the room with the biggest one out of a window, pointed at the sky. Harry crashed on the floor and didn't say anything when Natasha and Clint fell to either side of him, staring at the sky.

"We spent some time in here. Just looking at the sky. The whole thing was a bit of a splurge, but I'm a sentimentalist and it was as much for me as it was for him. New York City isn't really the best place to look for stars, but we made it work somehow." Harry trailed off, allowing the silence to settle over them comfortably. "Stupid man."

Natasha and Clint scoffed a little and laughed. They fell silent again.

"You aren't going to join us are you?" Natasha asked, but Harry got the feeling it was really Fury's question. Harry didn't feel any anger because of it, he was too tired. He just shook his head a little.

"No, I'm not going to join you guys. I will always be here with drinks and companionship if you need me, but that part of my life...that part of me is gone. Locked away for good. I noticed it while I had Loki, it was forced somehow. It didn't give me the rush it used to. I am over saving the world by killing people, I think I going to help orphans and get people drunk." Harry paused and let it sink in. "Can you really blame me for that?"

Natasha shook her head, but sighed. "You would have been a great handler."

Harry laughed and felt Clint do the same.

"There was only one good handler in that bunch of misfits and right now he is taking a day off." Harry replied quietly. He paused and then spoke again. "To Phil Coulson, the best man I knew."

"To Phil Coulson, the best handler a girl could ask for." Natasha said.

"To Phil Coulson the greatest Supernanny watching, trading card collecting hero in the world. The man that we all aspire to be." Clint responded.

They fell silent then. The silence of the room and the noise of the city surrounding them, lulling them to sleep. Their thoughts were as pleasant as the night.

Downstairs in a dark pub, a full glass in front of the empty chair remained untouched, it's owner was gone, but not forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this story right after the Avengers came out. Way before Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was even mentioned for the first time or anyone knew that Coulson was still alive. So I wrote a story mourning him and this was it. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Thanks,  
> ~Rain


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